1. ”La Citoyenne” Drouillard Vve Mallet Volunbrun, appeared before Claude Jean Baptiste Le Droit de Bussy, Chancellor of the French Republic, after arriving in New York, and narrated the details of her household's travels from Port-au-Prince to New York. “Declaration de J.^ne Mathurine Drouillard et de L.^ce Bigot.” 20 Pairial an 6eme [June 9, 1797]. Microfilm Outre-Mer 5MI/1437, frames 22-25, Fonds des Affaires Etrangerès, New York, Centre d'Accueil et de Recherche des Archives Nationales.

2. “Philadelphia; Friday, November, 18,” Finlay's American Naval and Commercial Register, November 18, 1796, 3Google Scholar; “The Schooner Governor Clinton…,” Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser, November 18, 1796, 3Google Scholar; “Marine List; Philadelphia, November 18,” Gazette of the United States, November 18, 1796, 3Google Scholar; and, “Arrived at Philadelphia,” Argus Greenleaf's New Daily Advertiser, November 21, 1796, 3Google Scholar.

3. Ownership was concentrated among white male merchants, retailers and, artisans, and among widows, many of whom ran boarding houses and other service establishments. At the same time, the number of the city's free black residents was on the rise, totaling just over 1,000 or one-third of the city's overall black population. White, Shane, Somewhat More Independent: The End of Slavery in New York City, 1770–1810 (Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 1991)Google Scholar; and Harris, Leslie M., In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 56Google Scholar.

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6. Deposition of John Marie Garvaise, August 11, 1801, The People v. Marcelle, Sam, Benjamin Bandey and 20 others, New York County District Attorney Indictment Records, August 8 1801 – February 8/9, 1802. Reel 6. New York City Municipal Archives. A Friend to Order, “Citizens of New-York,” New-York Gazette, September 1, 1801, 2.

7. They did, however, continue to dispose of their household goods. Volunbrun advertised for sale a covered wheel wagon and two bay horses at the end of August 1801. “For Sale,” American Citizen and General Advertiser, August 26, 1801, 3.

8. A Friend to Order, “For this Gazette; To the Public,” New-York Gazette, August 24, 1801, 2.

9. The Society's principal attorney, Peter Jay Munro, seems never to have replied to requests for his opinion of the case. New York Manumission Society (hereinafter NYMS) [Minutes,] October 17, 1801, and December 22, 1801. New-York Historical Society (hereinafter N-YHS.)

10. “Disorderly Houses,” New York Gazette, October 15, 1801, 2.

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12. White, Ashli, “The Politics of ‘French Negroes’ in the United States,” Historical Reflections 29 (2003): 118Google Scholar.

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14. For France, see, Peabody, Sue, “There Are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Regime (Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar. On the British empire and Somerset's Case, see, Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1779–1823 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 470–520Google Scholar.

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17. Historians of colonial North America have explained the emergence of territorial jurisdiction through confrontations among Native Americans, colonial authorities, and Europe's imperial leadership. Hermes, Katherine A., “Jurisdiction in the Colonial Northeast: Algonquian, English and French Governance,” American Journal of Legal History 43 (1999): 52–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ford, Lisa, “Empire and Order on the Colonial Frontier of Georgia and New South Wales,” Itinerario 30 (2006): 95–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Dan Hulsebosch explains the emergence of New York's distinct legal space in the period of Volunbrun dispute. Hulsebosch, Daniel J., Constituting Empire: New York and the Transformation of Constitutionalism in the Atlantic World, 1664-1830 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005)Google Scholar. On the construction of territorial jurisdictions see Richard Ford, T., “Law's Territory (A History of Jurisdiction)” Michigan Law Review 97 (1999): 843–930CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, Sack, Robert D., Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; and Revel, Jacques, “Knowledge of the Territory,” Science in Context 4 (1991): 133–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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19. “An ACT for the gradual abolition of Slavery,” in Laws of the State of New-York, Passed at the Twenty-Second Session, Second Meeting of the Legislature Begun … the Second Day of January, 1799 (Albany: Loring Andrews, 1799)Google Scholar. White, Somewhat More Independent, 38.

20. New York (State), Laws of the State of New-York, Passed by the Legislature of Said State, at Their Eleventh Session (New York: Samuel Loudon, printer to the state, 1788). 75–77Google Scholar. An ACT concerning Slaves, passed February 22, 1788.

21. In at least one case, Hamilton and Livingston represented a New York slave trader in an insurance claim. See Vandenheuvel v. The United Insurance Company (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1800)Google Scholar 2 Johns. Cas. 127.

22. Brockholst Livingston was descended from the highly influential New York Livingston clan, although his father became the first governor the neighboring state of New Jersey. Michael B. Dougan. “Livingston, Brockholst”; American National Biography Online (2002) http://www.anb.org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/articles/11/11-00532.html (March 7, 2008). The 1800 United States Census reports Livingston as living in New York City's First Ward, heading a household of fourteen, including three free black people and one slave. 1800 United States Census; New York, New York, First Ward. http://www.ancestry.com (March 7, 2008).

23. Among such cases were Covenhoven v. Seaman, et al. (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1799) 1 Johns. Cas. 23Google Scholar; Fish v. Fisher, (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1800) 2 Johns. Cas. 89Google Scholar; and, Sable v. Hitchcock, (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1800) 2 Johns. Cas. 79Google Scholar.

24. Louise V. North, “The ‘Amiable’ Children of John and Sarah Livingston Jay,” Unpublished conference paper (New York: Columbia University and the N-YHS, 2004) http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/symposia/john_jay/pdf/North.pdf

25. Munro was the son of Jay's sister, Eva Jay Munro, whose Scotland-born, loyalist husband, the Rev. Harry Munro, abandoned the two in 1777 when he left New York State for England. “Memoir of the Rev. Dr. Harry Munro, The Last Rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany, under the English Crown,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 4, no. 3 (July 1873):113–24Google Scholar.

26. The Jay family had been one of New York's largest slaveholding families earlier in the century as had been the Livingstons. Singer, Roberta, “The Livingstons as Slaveholders,” in The Livingston Legacy: Three Centuries of American History, eds. Wiles, Richart T. and Zimmermann, Andrea K. (Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Bard College, 1987), 67–97Google Scholar.

27. Livingston and Jay would have a falling out, leading Livingston to return to the United States in 1782 (at which time he was captured and temporarily held by the British.) Their rift inaugurated what became sharp political differences between the two in the decades that followed. But Munro remained with the Jays, travelling with them to France when Benjamin Franklin called upon Jay to assist in peace negotiations with the British.

28. Littlefield, Daniel C., “John Jay, the Revolutionary Generation, and Slavery,” New York History 81 (2000): 91–132, 128–30Google Scholar.

29. Peabody, “There Are No Slaves in France” I thank Peabody for clarifying that Abigail should have never been allowed into France and by positive law (the 1777 Police des Noirs), she should have been confiscated as the king's property and sold “to the colonies,” probably one in the French Antilles. I also thank Pierre Boule for his guidance in my research into Abigail's case in France. By the 1780s, however, the Admiralty Court of Paris was no longer enforcing the Police des Noirs (in flagrant disregard of the Ministry of the Marine), such that if Abigail had petitioned for her freedom in Passy, she would likely have received an arrêt by the court affirming her free status.

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31. For one view of the political events leading to France's 1793–94 abolition of slavery see Popkin, Jeremy D., You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.

32. A Friend to Justice, “For the Gazette,” New-York Gazette, August 24, 1801, 2.

33. A Friend to Order, “For the Gazette. To the Friend of Justice,” New-York Gazette, September 5, 1801, 2.

34. A Friend to Order, “For this Gazette,” New-York Gazette, September 13, 1801, 2.

35. Gellman, David N., Emancipating New York: The Politics of Slavery and Freedom, 1777–1827 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006), 154–55Google Scholar.

36. On first-wave abolition societies generally see, Newman, Richard S., The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press, 2002)Google Scholar, and on the New York Manumission Society, see Gellman, Emancipating New York.

37. Sharp was a correspondent to the Society in the years before 1801. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, May 21, 1789, May 12, 1785, November 15, 1787. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

38. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, August 11, 1785, May 15, 1788. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

39. The pamphlet referred to was An Inquiry Into the Causes of the Insurrection of the Negroes in the Island of St. Domingo (Philadelphia, London: Joseph Cruikshank, 1792)Google Scholar. For a discussion of this text, see, Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 105–8Google Scholar.

40. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, August 21, 1792. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

41. Ibid., March 7, 1794. The same committee reported on the case of the “Black Woman” said to have been sold by a “French Woman” that “upon enquiry they find the said Wench has been returned to her first mistress she having a husband absent, the Validity of the Sale was Questionable and made Null….” Ibid., August 12, 1794.

42. Ibid., June 23, 1875.

43. Ibid., June 2, 1795.

44. Ibid., August 13, 1795, April 5, 1796. Munro had represented the Manumission Society in a number of proceedings including Sable v. Hitchcock, Fish v. Fisher, and The People, ex rel. Allaire v. The Judges of Westchester, 2 Johns. Cas. 118. (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1800).

45. NYMS Standing Committee Minutes, March 23, 1797, June 8, 1797, June 22, 1797, July 20, 1798. NYMS Papers, N-YHS.

46. Ibid., September 17, 1797.

47. Ibid., April 25, 1800.

48. Ibid., June 10, 1800, June 26, 1799, July 20, 1801, July 28, 1801, August 28, 1801.

49. Ibid., April 25, 1800.

50. Ibid., August 22, 1800.

51. Sosnowski, Thomas and Baker, Vaughn, “Bitter Farewells: Francophobia and the French Émigrés in America,” Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750–1850: Selected Papers 1998 21 (1992): 276–83Google Scholar; 294–97.

52. On the XYZ Affair and the Quasi-War generally, see, DeConde, Alexander, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared Naval War with France, 1797–1801 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966)Google Scholar. For a very fine discussion of the evolution of United States–French diplomatic relations in the 1790s and the consequences for the construction of an American national identity, see, Hale, Matthew Rainbow, “‘Many Who Wandered in Darkness’: The Contest Over American Identity, 1795–1978,” Early American Studies 1 (2003): 127–175CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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55. Deposition of John Marie Garvaise. August 11,1801, The People v. Marcelle, Sam, et al.; and A Friend to Order, “Citizens of New-York,” New-York Gazette, September 1, 1801, 2.

56. The District Attorney's Indictment record noted that all of the twenty-three men prosecuted lived in the Seventh Ward and were employed as laborers, The People v. Marcelle, Sam, et al.

57. In re Tom, 5 Johns. 365 (Supreme Court of Judicature of New York, 1810). Later examples exist of enslaved people who pursue litigation using two names, for example in the cases of Mima Queen in Mima Queen v. Hepburn, 11 U.S. 290 (1813) and Dred Scott in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). Such is not the case in New York during the years of gradual abolition.

58. Regarding slaves and naming in Jamaica, see Burnard, Trevor, “Slave Naming patterns: Onomastics and the Taxonomy of Race in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 31 (2001): 325–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; in Cuba, see Zeuske, Michael, “Hidden Markers, Open Secrets: On Naming, Race-Marking, and Race-Making in Cuba,” New West Indian Guide/Nieue West-Indische Gids 76 (2002): 211–41CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

59. Berlin, Ira, Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 105–6Google Scholar.

60. Neither Berlin nor other scholars who have examined naming customs in the North have commented upon the frequency with which some African-Americans were known by only one name. Nor have they commented upon the significance of adopting non-Anglo American names by former slaves. Much of the attention to slavery and naming in the context of the colonial and early republic United States has focused elsewhere, particularly on the ties between naming practices and the retention of African cultural practices and rituals. See, for example, Thornton, John, “Central African Names and African-American Naming Patterns,” William & Mary Quarterly 50 (1993): 727–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61. In 1800, each state provided its enumerators with a standard form or schedule. This form called for the “name of the head of the family.” “Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000,” United States Census Bureau. United States Marshal (Massachusetts,) “District of Massachusetts, Marshall's Office, Boston, [blank] Sir, Wishing to avail the public of your services….” [Boston: s.n., 1800], Early American Imprints, Series 1, no. 49516 (digital supplement, May 7, 2008).

62. In the year 1800, the census data includes 690 black or mulatto heads of household, of which 42 were designated by one name only. In the Seventh Ward, a total of 171 such households were noted, with twelve noted by only one name. There were instances in which white householders were noted by only one name. There were 21 such instances overall in the 1800 census. But white householders when noted as having one name were always noted as having one family or surname. The city directory for the year 1799 is dissimilar. Its delineation of an “alphabetical list of the Heads of Families, etc. in the city of New York” never reports a family head by only one first name. There are, however, many instances in which family heads are reported by something other than a first and second name, for example: “Widow Ackerman,” C. Adams,” “______ Barrett,” and “Madame Dubois.” Longworth's directory did not distinguish between black, colored, and white city residents as did the census. Longworth's New-York Directory,147–397.

63. Yoshpe, Harry B., “Record of Slave Manumissions in New York During the Colonial and Early National Periods,” Journal of Negro History 26 (1941): 78–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64. For a perspective on postemancipation naming practices, see Zeuske “Hidden Markers, Open Secrets,” 235–66. Zeuske notes that in late-nineteenth century judicial and notarial records individuals names were recorded with the “addendum” s.o.a. (sin otro apellido/without any other surname) or s.s.a. (sin segundo apellido/without second surname). These designations were likely intended to denote individuals as former slaves and/or of African descent.

65. On the cultural significance of naming practices and the acquisition of names by former slaves see, on Brazil, Hébrard, Jean, “Esclavage et dénomination : imposition et appropriation d'un nom chez les esclaves de la Bahia au XIX^e siècle,” Cahiers du Brésil contemporain 53/54 (2003): 31–92Google Scholar; and, on Saint-Domingue, Dominique Rogers, “Les libres de couleur dans les capitales de Saint-Domingue : fortune, mentalités et intégration à la fin de l'Ancien Régime (1776-178),” thèse de doctorat, Bordeaux, Université Bordeaux III, 1999.

66. Louverture promulgated his constitution for Saint-Domingue in July of 1801, but word of these events does not appear to have reached New York City's newspaper editors until the following month. “Extract of a letter from Cap Francois…,” Commercial Advertiser, August 6, 1801, 1. On Louverture's constitution generally see, Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 238–46.

67. The meaning of freedom for the many thousands of rural agricultural workers was still to be determined, and many would soon be subjected to strict work regimes that some criticized as akin to forced labor.

68. The term “household” as used here is adopted from studies of plantation slavery in the United States. Historians have suggested the slaveholding household as a critical analytic category that foregrounds labor, power relations, and political practices. As an urban slaveholding configuration, the Volunbrun household was also shaped by the same dynamics, although to this case we should add legal contestations. Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina press, 1988)Google Scholar; Glymph, Thavolia, Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69. The French Code Noir of 1685 regulated slavery in the colonial empire. Stein, Robert L., Léger Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic (London and Toronto: Associated University Press, 1985), 78–95Google Scholar. Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 154–68. Slaves in the colony's North had been freed the previous August by the proclamation of Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax.

70. Geggus, David, Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint-Domingue, 1793-98 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 114–19, 142–52Google Scholar.

71. Dame Volunbrun. Procés-Verbaux des Deliberation du Conseil Privé de son honneur le Brigadier General Hozrek a compter du 22 7^bre 1794 jusqua et compris le 26 fevier 1795. British National Archives, Public Records Office (Kew). CO [Colonial Office,] 245, 5 page 111 (December 5, 1794). Based upon a review of the folios and notarial acts contained therein of French colonial notaries public Monnerons, Cottin, Molliet, Hacquet, Fissoux, Vausselin, Thomin, Barrault in Port-au-Prince and Croix des Bouquets for the years 1793 to 1797. Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence.

72. Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 168–70.

73. The state's trial courts had been confronted with complex interpretations of the general prohibition against trading slaves through the state. Sable v. Hitchcock, 2 Johns. Cas. 79 (New York Supreme Court 1800) held, for example, that an executor's sale of slaves after an owner's death did not violate the general prohibition against the sale of slaves imported into the state. In Fish v. Fisher, 2 Johns. Cas. 89 (New York Supreme Court 1817) the Court freed an enslaved man who had been hired out across state lines, rather than sold, in an effort by his owner to avoid charges of illicit slave trading. Regarding these cases generally, see Finkelman, Paul, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 70–76Google Scholar.

74. “For the American Citizen,” American Citizen and General Advertiser, September 2, 1801, 3.

75. A Friend to Order, “For this Gazette. To the Friend of Justice,” New-York Gazette, September 5, 1801, 2.

76. For Saint-Domingue, the evidence of these arrangements remains anecdotal. The baptisms of slaves were not recorded in the colony's état civil, or parish records. For a discussion of Godparenthood and the baptism of slaves in Brazil, see Gudeman, Stephen and Schwartz, Stuart B., “Cleansing Original Sin: Godparenthood and Baptism of Slaves in Eighteenth-Century Bahia,” in Kinship Ideology and Practice in Latin America, ed. Smith, Raymond T. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 35–58Google Scholar.

77. Widow de Volunbrun to Citoyen Commissaire Général, August 24, 1801, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes, Consulat de Philadelphie, Consulat Général, 125, Affaires Particulières. Thank you to Manuel Covo of the l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales for bringing this document to my attention.

78. Steinfeld, Robert J., The Invention of Free Labor: The Employment Relation in English and American Law and Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991) 122–46Google Scholar.

79. The record is unclear as to how many of her slaves Volunbrun proposed to “remove” to Louisiana. The Court of Appeals decision indicates the number was five, but the power of attorney that authorized the sale of Volunbrun's sales notes only four.

80. Subsequent courts as well as treatises cite the Baptiste case on questions related establishing a party's domicile. Bowling v. Turner, 78 Md. 595, 28 A. 1100 (1894); Ringgold v. Barley, 5 Md. 186 (1853), Houston v. Texas Central Railway, 70 Tex 51; State ex rel. Phelps v. Jackson, 64 A. 657; Haney v. Marshall, 9 Md. 194 (1856); Siemer's Adm'r v. Siemer, 2 G&J 100; and Londerry v. Andover, 28 Vt. 416 (1856). See also, Jeffrey A. Schoenblum, “Section 9.08. Refugees and Stateless Persons,” Multistate and Multinational Estate Planning, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (discussing the Ennis-Baptiste distinction); and, Melville M. Bigelow, Commentaries on the Conflict of Law, Foreign and Domestic: In Regard to Contracts, Rights, and Remedies, 8th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1883). The case is also associated with considerations of the standard of evidence for the admission of the acts of foreign legislatures. Cappeau's Bail v. Middleton & Baker, 1 H&G 154 (1827).