ABSTRACT
The core topics of this chapter include the abandonment of enslaved servants, their state of health, as well as the mistreatment and sexual abuse of enslaved women—and how these respective matters were cited in court. Of the 11 freedom suits, 10 women and 1 man based their narratives on these themes in order to prove their right to freedom. According to their narratives, they saw themselves as unfit for further enslavement because of poor health or considered further enslavement intolerable due to the mistreatment that they had received of their previous legal owners.
