Marguerite Thompson’s Petition

Today’s Document from the National Archives is a fascinating petition from a free woman of color in New Orleans named Marguerite Thompson, who asked the U.S. Provisional Court to confirm her status as a free person in June 1863.

Petition Filed by Marguerite Thompson Praying for Her Emancipation, 6/30/1863From the series:  Case Files, 1863 - 1865. Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009This petition was filed by Marguerite Thompson, a “woman of color,” to secure her emancipation in 1863.  In 1851 she purchased her freedom from her master and received a receipt for the transaction.  She enjoyed her freedom, but still didn’t have full control of her affairs and property because she did not have an official degree from an authority.  On the final page of the document, the court declares her “henceforth and forever free.“You can make this document more searchable and accessible by helping to transcribe it in the National Archives Catalog.

Petition Filed by Marguerite Thompson Praying for Her Emancipation, 6/30/1863From the series:  Case Files, 1863 - 1865. Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009This petition was filed by Marguerite Thompson, a “woman of color,” to secure her emancipation in 1863.  In 1851 she purchased her freedom from her master and received a receipt for the transaction.  She enjoyed her freedom, but still didn’t have full control of her affairs and property because she did not have an official degree from an authority.  On the final page of the document, the court declares her “henceforth and forever free.“You can make this document more searchable and accessible by helping to transcribe it in the National Archives Catalog.

Petition Filed by Marguerite Thompson Praying for Her Emancipation, 6/30/1863From the series:  Case Files, 1863 - 1865. Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009This petition was filed by Marguerite Thompson, a “woman of color,” to secure her emancipation in 1863.  In 1851 she purchased her freedom from her master and received a receipt for the transaction.  She enjoyed her freedom, but still didn’t have full control of her affairs and property because she did not have an official degree from an authority.  On the final page of the document, the court declares her “henceforth and forever free.“You can make this document more searchable and accessible by helping to transcribe it in the National Archives Catalog.

I tweeted a short analysis of the petition and Storified the tweets. Here they are:

Marguerite Thompson Storify

One aspect of Marguerite Thompson’s petition that drew my attention is the fact that she submitted her petition to the Judge Charles Peabody’s U.S. Provisional Court (USPC). This court was established by the United States after Union forces seized New Orleans in 1862. Legal scholar John Gordan writes that “the most legally dramatic of the Provisional Court’s activities was its granting of manumission petitions by slaveholders.” (See Gordan’s article, “New York Justice in Civil War Louisiana,” Judicial Notice 8, p. 20)

As Gordan reveals, one of those slaveholders who appealed to Judge Peabody to manumit his slaves was the lawyer Thomas Jefferson Durant, who later represented Rose Herera in her quest to recover her children.

You can read more about Rose Herera’s and other enslaved and freed women’s own efforts to use the courts to secure freedom for themselves and their families during the Civil War in my book, Beyond Freedom’s Reach.