PETITIONING TO BE A VIRGINIA SLAVE?

Talking about amazing audacity! "During the 1850s, the most tumultuous decades in American history , new laws regarding people of color in various southern states the fear and anxiety of many slaveholders toward free blacks. Six states passed statutes whereby free blacks could petition courts and legislatures to become slaves. The first of these, passed in Virginia in 1856, provided a blueprint 'for the voluntary enslavement of the free negroes.' Any free persons of color--men, at least twenty -one years of age; women, eighteen--who were residents of the state could choose a master and enter slavery by submitting to the circuit court a petition that exists explained their wishes to be reduced to bondage." Fortunately, the author of the book from which this quote was taken, did not name any free persons who sued to be enslaved in Virginia! The book is APPEALING FOR LIBERTY FREEDOM SUITS IN THE SOUTH by Loren Schweninger (2018), p. 48