Viewing page 128 of 274

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

the former bound over to keep the peace; although complaints of beating and threats against the lives of Freedmen havee been frequent since my arrival here. In one of my Reports while in charge of Amherst County, I remarked, that in such instances all the Justices of the Peace could or would do, was to bind the offender over to keep the peace, but that this, with the white man, amounted to little or nothing in the end since he, of course, would find no difficulty in giving the required bonds; while the colored man, in nine cases out of ten most probably failing to give security, would have to go to jail. To all this the foregoing case will offer  striking illustration and contract.
 
A few weeks ago, a white man, a short distance from this place, killed another. The next day without having been molested, he came forward to surrender himself, asserting that he did the deed in self defense, as his life had been threatened by the murdered man, who was about to draw a pistol when he was shot down; this however there are contradictory statements of. The hearing was set, to come off here; several days later; but in the interim, the party was taken by warrant before some Justice of the Peace out of the Village, and readily discharged. Had he been a colored man, it is safe to say that this would not have been the case. 

In January of this year a decision was rendered by the Bureau Court, then in operation, by which "Mrs. Pheoby Baker" -white- was to give "Margaret" -freedwoman- "and children each full suit of winter clothing, shoes and stockings." This judgment not having been satisfied when I came here, and as I then had no authority to enforce it. Plantif by my counsil, submitted the case to "Benjamin N. Hatcher" are of the most intelligent Magistrates of the County, requesting that the two former citizen members of the Freedmen's Court- "John S. Hale" and "Wm E. Andrews."

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-04-29 00:55:08 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-04-29 10:55:22 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-04-29 12:45:07