Introduction

This chapter introduces how the analysis of exemplary 30 individual cases demonstrates the intricate strategies of argumentation lawyers and plaintiffs conceived to prove the right to freedom of the parties involved and convince the authorities of it. These narratives function through stories of injustices, and not through theoretical treatises on the right to liberty. Plaintiffs and lawyers contrived narratives that aimed at withstanding the version of the opposing party without challenging the power structures around them. Taken as a whole, these legal suits create a narrative against the enslavement institution. Enslaved and formerly enslaved persons did not only protest their enslavement through rebellion, flight, refusal to work, and in everyday life, but produced an intellectual statement in the legal sphere for the abolition of slavery. This intellectual achievement was realized through the cooperation of lawyers and enslaved plaintiffs or defendants alike.