Hornby and Akrawi on History Lessons: Instructive Legal Episodes from Maine's Early Years--Episode 3: An Enslaved Man Suing in Federal Court @GB2d

D. Brock Hornby and Emma Akrawi have published History Lessons: Instructive Legal Episodes from Maine's Early Years — Episode 3: An Enslaved Man Suing in Federal Court at 26 Green Bag 2d 101 (2023). Here is the abstract.

In 1837, Lambert Bercier of French Guadeloupe engaged Captain Sylvanus Prince of North Yarmouth, Maine, to transport Bercier's 30-year-old slave Polydore and Bercier's 17-year-old son Eugene to Maine on board the brig Galen. On the voyage, the Captain repeatedly assaulted Polydore. Polydore brought a civil suit for damages in federal court in Portland, Maine. The outcome was Polydore v. Prince, an 1837 federal decision by Judge Ashur Ware that is often ignored and sometimes mischaracterized, holding an enslaved man could sue in federal admiralty court for floggings on the high seas. This article revisits the case, drawing from recently accessed archived court documents.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.