153-155.]
As to routine control, urban proprietors were less complete masters even
of slaves in their own employ than were those in the country. For example,
Morgan Brown of Clarksville, Tennessee, had occasion to publish the
following notice: "Whereas my negroes have been much in the habit of
working at night for such persons as will employ them, to the great injury
of their health and morals, I therefore forbid all persons employing them
without my special permission in writing. I also forbid trading with them,
buying from or selling to them, without my written permit stating the
article they may buy or sell. The law will be strictly enforced against
transgressors, without respect to persons[43]."
[Footnote 43: _Town Gazette and Farmers' Register_ (Clarksville, Tenn.),
Aug. 9, 1819, reprinted in _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 45, 46.]
When broils occurred in which slaves were involved, the masters were likely
to find themselves champions rather than judges. This may be illustrated by
two cases tried before the town commissioners of Milledgeville, Georgia,
in 1831. In the first of these Edward Gary was ordered to bring before the
board his slave Nathan to answer a charge of assault upon Richard Mayhorn,
a member of the town patrol, and show why punishment should not be
inflicted.
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