An act to repeal several acts therein mentioned respecting slaves, to declare slaves assets for payment of debts and legacies, and in what manner they shall descend and be held as property, and be sold and conveyed in certain cases.

 

Enacts, Clause 2.--- “That no slave shall be free by becoming a Christian; and for payment of debts and legacies all slaves shall be deemed and taken as all other goods and chattels are in the hands of executors or administrators; and, where other goods and chattel are not sufficient to satisfy the said debts and legacies, then so many slaves as are necessary for the payment of debts and legacies shall be sold, and the remaining slaves, after the payment of the said debts and legacies, shall be judged, deemed, and taken [2] as inheritance, and shall accordingly descend; and all children of slaves, born in the possession of tenant for life or years, shall remain or revert, as the parents do or should have done, to him or her, in reversion or remainder, after expiration of such term of years after the death of tenant for life or tenant in tail, after possibility of issue extinct: Provided nevertheless, That nothing in this clause shall extend, or be construed to extend, to leases heretofore made; any thing in this or any other act to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.”

 

Clause 4.--- “That all slaves assigned for dower shall be liable, proportionably with those belonging to any heir or heirs, to the payment of debts, but not of legacies, any thing to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided, Nothing in this act contained shall extend to hinder any person, possessed in his own right of any slave or slaves, to sell, or by gift or otherwise, dispose of, such slave or slaves as he shall think fit during his life-time, which sale, gift, or disposal, shall be a perpetual bar to his wife from any claim of dower in such slave or slaves.”

 

Clause 5.--- “That the clerks of the peace, or clerks of the vestry where no clerks of the peace are, of the several parishes and precincts within this island, shall keeper a distinct book, in which it shall and may be lawful for all persons resident within the parish or precinct where such book is kept, to cause entries to be made of all slaves sold and disposed of, and agreed to be conveyed by toll; in every which entry shall be expressed the time of the sale made, the names of the vender and vendee, the name and mark of the slave or slaves, with the consideration for which sold; which said entry or toll, if the seller is lawfully authorized to sell or dispose of such slave or slaves, shall be as good and valid to ratify and confirm the said sale or sales as if the same had been by deed or writing under hand and seal, and shall be held, deemed, and adjudged to be a sufficient record and evidence in any court of record within this island: Provided always, That no entry by way of toll shall be effectual to transfer and convey the slaves of a femme covert, but that such slaves shall only be transferred and conveyed by deed, executed, and proved in the same manner and form as is required to deeds for barring dower: And if any person shall raze, injure, or destroy, any such entry or toll, the person so offending, on being convicted in the supreme court, or any court of assize within this island, shall suffer such punishment as the law has provided against such a raze, injure, or destroy, [records]; and if any clerk by whom such book is directed to be kept shall refuse or neglect to make such entry, on receiving or having tendered to him the legal fee, he shall forfeit to the party or parties injured the sum of ten pounds for every such offence, to be recovered in a summary way before two or more magistrates of the parish or precinct, and to be levied, by warrant under their hands and seals, on the goods and chattels of the offender”