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Grant County Circuit Court, Civil case files, 1838-circa 1945 (Grant Series 64, Box 51) and Minutes, 1837-1870, 1873-1911 (Grant Series 67, Volume 2): selections

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Circuit Court (Grant County)

Description

In 1831, George Wallace Jones (1804-1896) brought his spouse and seven enslaved African-Americans from Missouri to Wisconsin. In the fall of 1840, one of them (called ""Paul, a man of color"" or ""Paul Jones"" in court records) claimed that because slavery was illegal in Wisconsin, he was owed back wages and sued Jones in Grant County Circuit Court. Eleven of the 12 jurors sided with Paul Jones, but the lone holdout eventually prevailed and the jury concluded on Oct. 4, 1840, that he was not owed any compensation for his years of forced labor. Given below are the court records documenting this case. They total more than 70 pages and include testimony, summonses for witnesses, depositions, and pages related to separate cases in which Paul Jones sued other people for money.
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Record Contributed By

Wisconsin Historical Society

Record Harvested From

Recollection Wisconsin

Keywords

  1. African Americans
  2. Antislavery Movement
  3. Legislation
  4. Slaver
  5. Slavery

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