EXTRAORDINARY 1817 NEW ORLEANS SLAVE SALE RECORD REGARDING THE SALE OF AN ENSLAVED CONGOLESE MAN WHOSE ESCAPE LED TO A LANDMARK LOUISIANA SUPREME COURT CASE

Manuscript bill of sale for an enslaved Congolese man from the estate of Jean Pierre Baptiste Zanico (1746-1816). New Orleans, Louisiana. Filed 19 June, 1817. 1p, 4to. Written in French with Court of Probate of the State of Louisiana seal embossed to lower left, docketed to verso.

Inscribed in English along the top: "Extract of the Process verbal of sale of the slaves belonging to the estate of the late Jean Baptiste Zanico," with his widow, Marie Adelaide Gendron (1762-1832) serving as executrix. 

Legal document recording the sale at public auction of "Jean, nègre Congo, âgé d'environ trente ans, cuisinier [Jean, a black man from the Congo, about thirty years old, a cook]" to a Madame Habine [Louise Gabrielle Fortier Habine (1755-1828)] for $1,505.

Originally from Milan, Italy, Jean Zanico is recorded as a resident of New Orleans per the U.S. Federal Census of 1810, with four enslaved persons enumerated in his household. After his death in 1816, his estate was administered in probate court, with Jean's verbal sale recorded in the document offered here.

In March of 1818,  Zanico v. Habine (3 Mart. 372), was heard in the Louisiana Supreme Court. According to the testimony, Jean escaped immediately after the auction, before he ever entered Habine's custody. When pursued, he committed an assault, with alleged intent to murder, for which he was tried and condemned to death, but afterwards pardoned and released. Habine, however, refused to receive him, claiming that while she was the highest bidder and that Jean had been adjudicated to her, the sale was never finalized; further, had the sale taken place, it should be annulled, on the grounds of Jean's purported redhibitory defect. 

The attorneys, Louis Moreau Lislet for the plaintiff, and Edward Livingston for the defendant, along with the judge who delivered the opinion of the court, Pierre Derbigny, constituted the three “fathers” of the Louisiana Civil Code and were regarded as the best and brightest legal geniuses of their time. Ultimately, the court sided with Livingston and Habine, citing that a verbal sales of immoveable property, including enslaved individuals, should be nullified. Further, since Jean's escape and the subsequent assault took place within three days of the sale, the court ruled that redhibitory vice could be applied to the case. 

[African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]