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Dated February 25, 1843, the emancipation deed isn’t an imposing document. The black ink has faded over the years. It’s written on baby blue stationery, not on thick white legal paper. But its message must have burned as bright for Kitty and her companions in bondage as the ringing phrases of the Declaration of Independence did for the American colonists a century earlier.
“I do emancipate and forever restore to perfect freedom, free from the control, claim or demands of any and all, person or persons whatsoever..." Mary Maddox wrote of her seven former slaves.
On the day she became a free woman, Kitty Payne was 27, Eliza five and Mary four. The deed of emancipation was proven in the county court of Rappahannock during its March, 1843, term and admitted to record.
Free State
The South didn’t put out a welcome mat for free blacks in those years just prior to the Civil War. So instead of
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