She...Refuses to Deliver Up Herself as the Slave of Your Petitioner': Émigrés, Enslavement, and the 1808 Louisiana Digest of the Civil Laws (Symposium on The Bicentennial of the Digest of 1808--Collected Papers)

Authors

Rebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2009

Abstract

Philosophically and juridically, the construct of a slave-a "person with a price"--contains multiple ambiguities. Placing the category of slave among the distinctions of persons "established by law," the 1808 Digest of the Civil Laws Now in Force in the Termtoiy of Orleans recognized that "slave" is not a natural category, inhering in human beings. It is an agreement among other human beings to treat one of their fellows as property. But the Digest did not specify how such a property right came into existence in a given instance. The definition of a slave was simply ostensive, pointing toward rather than analyzing its object: "A slave is one who is in the power of a master and belongs to him in such a manner, that the master may sell him... ." In other words, the slave is the one who is held as a slave.'

Recommended Citation

Scott, Rebecca J. "'She...Refuses to Deliver Up Herself as the Slave of Your Petitioner' Émigrés, Enslavement, and the 1808 Louisiana Digest of the Civil Laws (Symposium on The Bicentennial of the Digest of 1808--Collected Papers)." Tul. Eur. & Civ. L. F. 24 (2009): 115-36.