Elizabeth READE BRIGGS
0614 (Accession # 21483409). Giles County, Tennessee. Elizabeth Briggs seeks her share of sixteen slaves, who are currently in the possession of the defendants. Briggs informs the court that her father, William Read, died in 1794, seized of a female slave named Phillis. She further represents that the widow “made an absolute sale of the said Phillis” and that the enslaved female “had no opportunity to, and in fact never did make any choice of any one of the children of said Read to whom she Phillis would go after the decease of the said Widow Susan Read.” She asserts that “the children issue and increase of the said Phillis” are held by her sisters and brothers-in-law and that “said defendants aside from said negros are in very moderate circumstances as to property.” Briggs believes “that the said defendants unless restrained by your honor will remove said negros beyond the jurisdiction of said court to parts unknown” and that “a decree in favour of your oratrix would be wholly useless & nugatory & of no profit to your Oratrix.” She therefore prays that “your honor decree to your oratrix her portion of said property as one of the heirs & distributees of the sd William Read deceased” and that “the said defendants be restrained by your honor in the mean time from removing the said negros beyond the jurisdiction of said court.”
Source: Schweninger, Loren, ed. Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks. Series II, Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1775--1867. Part E: Arkansas (1824-1867), Missouri (1806-1860), Tennessee (1792-1868), and Texas (1830-1867). p. 115. Black Studies Research sources.p. 115. Online cisupa.proquest.com/ksc_assets/catalog/16454.pdf