![]() ![]() Local papers criticize the tortuous logic of the State Supreme Court decision and encourage San Francisco judge T.W. African Americans raise funds for Lee’s legal fees. Kidnapping charges leveled against Stovall by Lee’s supporters are rejected by the court. Permission to reproduce the Mallette Dean illustration was granted by Dean’s daughter, Debora Dean Kerkof and her family. Lithograph created by Mallette Dean showing Archy Lee being kidnapped and rowed to the Orizaba. They board but after heated words and a scuffle, the Orizaba sails out through the Golden Gate, while Stovall and Lee return to shore with the sheriff. A boat for the sheriff is attached to the Orizaba’s stern.Īs the Orizaba nears Angel Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, a rowboat with Stovall and the kidnapped Archy Lee pulls alongside. Onboard the vessel is a deputy sheriff and two of his assistants. Stovall’s supporters jeer as the ship pulls away from shore. Word leaks out and crowds gather on the wharf. Stovall prepares to return to Mississippi with his “property.” Law enforcement officers are tipped off that Stovall intends to stow Lee aboard the Orizaba, set to depart San Francisco on March 5. It is not so much the rights of the parties immediately concerned in this particular case, as the bearing of the decision upon our future relations with our sister States, that gives to the subject its greatest importance.” “This case has excited much interest and feeling, and gives rise to many questions of great delicacy. On February 11, to a packed court room that includes anti-slavery and pro-slavery supporters, Terry announces that Archy Lee is to be “given back” to Stovall. ![]() If Stovall is traveling through, as he claims, then he should be allowed to keep any “property” that he brought with him. Two of the three judges of the California Supreme Court, Terry and Associate Justice (and first California governor) Peter Burnett, are pro-slavery but argue in their decision that the issue isn’t about the propriety of slavery but whether Stovall and Lee are residents of California or visitors. Stovall has enlisted the help of California State Supreme Court Chief Justice David Terry, a pro-slavery Tennessee native who agrees to have the high court hear the case. “I want it to come out right: I don’t want to go back to Mississippi.”Īfter Lee is declared a free man, local authorities promptly arrest him again. Stovall and his lawyers make a personal appeal to the federal magistrate in San Francisco who bounces the case back to Sacramento CountyĪccording to newspaper accounts, during testimony at the Sacramento trial on January 23, 1858, Archy Lee says: The judge determines that Lee is a free man. Lee’s first trial is held in Sacramento County. ![]() Affadavit of Charles Stovall, filed March 29, 1858, National Archives ![]() Over the next 14 weeks, there are two county district court cases, one State Supreme Court ruling, a refusal from a federal magistrate to hear the case, a kidnapping, and public protests before a final decision on Lee’s status is rendered. Stovall has him arrested in January 1858. In late 1857, Stovall decides to move back to Mississippi and orders Lee to return with him. Archy Lee considers himself a free man in California and sets up a barber shop in Sacramento. Stovall has no luck finding gold and takes up teaching as a profession. Stovall moves to California from Mississippi to try his luck in the gold fields. Such is the case when plantation owner Charles A. Being a free state causes some of those “servants” to declare their freedom. But even in 1857, Southerners still come to the Golden State with their “servants” in tow. Between January and April of 1858, Northern California is rocked by the “case of the decade” – a determination of whether Archy Lee is allowed to live in California as a free man or be returned to Mississippi, a fugitive slave.Ĭalifornia enters the union as a free state in 1850. ![]()
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