Jailed for "Stealing" His Own Family: Cato's Writ of Habeas Corpus, 1786

On March 28, 1786, a jail keeper in Chester County, Pennsylvania, received a prisoner named Cato. His crime, in the words of the committal: "stealing and taking away" a woman named Mary and her three children, Bets, Cato and Isaac. Mary was Cato's wife. The children were his. The man who claimed to own them, Samuel Moore of Goshen, paid £50 to have him prosecuted.

Cato — his last name is not recorded — was a formerly enslaved man who had taken his enslaved family away from their enslaver. The paper that records his arrest also records the beginning of a landmark case.

What a writ of habeas corpus did

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court used writs of habeas corpus to order jail keepers to bring detained people before the court. Justice George Bryan issued one for Cato, ordering him to appear before the court in Philadelphia on April 1, 1786.

Where it led

Cato's act was the opening of Respublica v. Negro Betsey (1789), heard by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court inside Independence Hall. Betsey — also called Bet — was Cato's daughter. The case was the first test of the registration requirements of Pennsylvania's 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, and it set a legal precedent for freedom seekers in the new nation's earliest freedom suits.

The document

The transcript

Spelling as in the original.

Chester Ss
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Receive into your Custody the body of Cato charged by Samuel Moore Junr. with stealing and taking away Marry the slave of Samuel Moore the Elder and her 3 children to wit Bets, Cato, and Isaac, and him safely keep untill he be thence delivered by due course of Law, given under my hand and Seal March 28th 1786.
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[J?] Pearson
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To the Sheriff of keeper of the Goal at Chester

On the back:

The Commonwealth vs Cato — 1786 March 28th — For Stealing Mary the property of Samuel Moore and her three Children to wit Betse Cato & Isaac. Cato committed. Samuel Moore Junr £50 to prosecute. Copy of my Record. [J?] Pearson

The committal names Samuel Moore Jr. as the accuser and Samuel Moore the Elder as the claimed owner.

Sources

Based on "Writ of Habeas Corpus for Cato, March 28, 1786," National Park Service, Independence National Historical Park; the document is held by the Pennsylvania State Archives. The National Park Service text is a work of the United States government in the public domain; the 1786 document is in the public domain by age.