"Jenny Slew" (1719-?)

A slave who sued for freedom. was born to a white mother and a father of African descent,most likely a slave. She lived as a free woman until 1762, marrying several times. At the age of fortythree she was forcefully kidnapped from her Massachusetts home and enslaved by John Whipple Jr.Three years after her capture Jenny filled a civil suit,Jenny Slew, Spinster, versus John Whipple Jr.,Gentleman,against her would-be master, asserting through her counsel that as a child's legal status follows that of the mother, she was like her white mother, a frree woman.Through at the time most colonies, denied slaves legal protection,Massachusetts allowed an enslaved individual,though still recognized as property,to bring a civil suit. As one of the first slaves to sue for freedom,Jenny faced a paniel of judges who had no precedent to follow. She accidentally filed her complaint in the incorrect jurisdiction,the Inferior Court of Common Pleas in Newburyport,which dismissed her petition on the grounds that,,since Jenny had been married,"Jenny Slew, Spinsters," did not exist.Ironically,the assertion that Jenny's marriages were legally significant implied that she truly was free.After losing the case,Jenny, was required to pay court costs.Through the inferior court ruled in John's favor, Jenny continued to seek justice. In 1766 she submitted an appeal to the superior court, where she faced a trial by jury.The jury,though its members' names are not recorded,would have been composed of John's peers:white "Gentlemen." The contested points were the same in both proceedings. John asserted that Jenny was unable to prove her right to liberty and that he possessed a bill of sale for her purchase.Even more importantly, however, he argued that as a married woman Jenny's legal rights were noneexistent,subsumed under the authority of her husband,and that she lacked the right or ability to sue.Several factors complicated his argument.First,Jenny, was not married at the times of the trails.Second,and more importantly,her marriages had all been to enslaved men and were legally questionable;Massachusetts,under a 1706 antimiscegenation statute,refused to legiitimate marriages where where one or both members of the couple were slaves.In contradiction of the earlier ruling,she was deemed a "spinster," independent and able to bring suit against John.Irinically,her indentity as a slave granted her a recourse to the law that she lacked as a woman.The superior ruled in her favor,granting Jenny freedom and awarding her court costs as well as 6.4888 dollars. Jenny may be the first person held as a slave granted rightful freedom through trial by jury.Her suit was followed by those of others slaves who sued for freedom, Mum Bett (later Elizabeth Freeman),whose 1781 case resulted in freedom,to Dred Scott's unsuccessful suit of 1856 and subsequent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court,which was met by the court's 1857,decision denying blacks citizens.