An example occurred in the case
of Rhame _vs_. Ferguson and Dangerfield, decided by the South Carolina
Court of Appeals in 1839 in connection with a statute enacted by the
legislature of that state in 1800 restricting manumissions and prescribing
that any slaves illegally set free might be seized by any person as
derelicts. George Broad of St. John's Parish, Berkeley County, had died
without blood relatives in 1836, bequeathing fourteen slaves and their
progeny to his neighbor Dangerfield "in trust nevertheless and for this
purpose only that the said John R. Dangerfield, his executors and assigns
do permit and suffer the said slaves ... to apply and appropriate
their time and labor to their own proper use and behoof, without the
intermeddling or interference of any person or persons whomsoever further
than may be necessary for their protection under the laws of this state";
and bequeathing also to Dangerfield all his other property in trust for the
use of these negroes and their descendants forever. These provisions were
being duly followed when on a December morning in 1837 Rebecca Rhame, the
remarried widow of Broad's late brother-in-law, descended upon the Broad
plantation in a buggy with John J.
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