African American Slavery: California Fugitive Slave Case: Stovall v. Archy Legal Papers

African American Slavery: California Fugitive Slave Case: Stovall v. Archy Legal Papers

Including additional material this collection has a total of 409 pages.

Stovall v. Archy is the only known federal fugitive slave case tried in California, a "free state." Archy Lee was an African American born into slavery in Mississippi in 1840. Lee's slave-owner was Charles Stovall, he brought Lee with him to Sacramento, California on October 2, 1857. While in California, Stovall opened a private school and rented out Lee. In January 1858, when Stovall decided to return to Mississippi, Lee, then age 18, escaped from Stovall while on the way to a ship heading out of California and returned to Sacramento. 

On January 26, 1858, Judge Robert Robinson ruled that Lee was a free man because California was a free state and, though Mississippi was a slave state, Stovall had become a permanent resident of California, and thus could not own slaves. The California Supreme Court on February 11, 1858, ruled that although California prohibited slave ownership for state residents, Stovall's inexperience and poor health warranted an exception and that he be allowed to leave the state with Lee as his property. The case then went to the federal judiciary.

This collection includes:

Court Documents - California Fugitive Slave Case: Stovall v. Archy

32 pages of court filings from the case Stovall v. Archy (1858). Legal papers filed with the U.S. Commissioner, U.S. Circuit Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

Very little of the original federal case material remains on file at the National Archives-Pacific Region (San Francisco). The surviving documents in this case file were mostly filed by Stovall (the slaveowner). These give Stovall's account of his and Archy's travels from Mississippi to California, where Stovall hired Archy out as a laborer. 

Included among the documents are the petition of C. A. Stovall; affidavits of C. A. Stovall, S. J. Noble; E. H. Baker, and E. R. Doyle; the warrant of arrest for Archie Lee; the subpoena for Archie's witnesses; and unsigned, undated notes, believed to be those of the U.S. Commissioner on application of Fugitive Slave Act in the case.

With the aid of some free blacks, Archy attempted to hide from Stovall to avoid being sent back to Mississippi, leading to his arrest as a fugitive.

Charles Parker, an active member of the large free black community in Sacramento, then filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus. The case was first tried at the Sacramento County Court in 1858. Because of the length of Stovall's residence in California, the county ruled that the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 did not apply and that Archy was free. 

Archy was re-arrested, however, and the case then moved to the California Supreme Court. That court ruled that the Fugitive Slave Law did apply when slaveowners were only temporary sojourners in the state (as Stovall claimed to be).  Stovall then attempted to send Archy back to Mississippi by sea, but this attempt was checked by free blacks who took out writs charging kidnapping, which were served by the San Francisco police. 

The case moved rapidly from San Francisco County Court to the San Francisco jurisdiction of the U.S. Commissioner, a southerner Stovall expected would find for the slaveowner. However, the Commissioner concluded on April 14, 1858, that Archy was not a fugitive slave and should be released. The "Brief for Respondent" and a few other filings suggest a version of events very different from Stovall's initial claim that he was a temporary sojourner in California.


The Fugitive Slave Law and its Victims (1861) Excerpt

An excerpt from an anti-slavery tract published by the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1861 with material covering the Stovall case.

 
Newspaper Articles

34 pages of newspaper articles dating from 1858 to 1893 with coverage of Stovall v. Archy (1858). Most pages are from California newspapers published in March and April of 1858.

 
Civil Rights, Racial Protest, and Anti-Slavery Activism in San Francisco, 1850-1865 (1999)

The National Park Service in 1999 published the study, "Civil Rights, Racial Protest, And Anti-Slavery Activism in San Francisco, 1850-1865," by Albert S. Broussard. It contains significant content concerning the Stovall Case and broad issues involved in the case.

 
Sweet Freedom’s Plains: African Americans on the Overland Trails 1841-1869 (2012)

This 271-page study, published by the National Park Service in 2012 contains information about Archy Lee, the Stovall Case, and California’s Fugitive Slave Act of 1852. This study examines African American participation in the great overland trails emigrations that occurred in the nineteenth century. It focuses on the history of African Americans on the California, Oregon and Mormon Trails from 1841 to 1869, when the transcontinental railroad was completed. The study explores three interrelated themes: black emigrants’ experiences on the overland trails, their perceptions of the journey, and their perceptions of the West and their new communities.