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"Slave Case in Connecticut" article from the Gazette and Mercury newspaper

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States which did not allow slavery were called free states. They had laws which stated if a master brought his slave into the state, the slave was automatically free because slavery was illegal in that state. This article reports on the case of a slave named Lucy Jackson who had been brought from Georgia into Connecticut during the 1830s. When she became concerned that she would be taken back to a southern state, she was encouraged to bring her case to court. The Connecticut court ruled that she was free, since the laws of the state prohibited slavery. The Gazette & Mercury was the newspaper in Greenfield, Massachusetts, from June 27, 1837 to July 13, 1841, when it changed its name to the Gazette & Courier.

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