Pierre, a man of color v. Gabrial Chouteau
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MontrealMontreal, on the eighteenth of February in the year one thousand Eight hundred, on the petition of a
negro called RobinRobin , alias RobertRobert , who was held as a
slave by on JamesJames Fraser FraserJames Fraser : the Judgment of the
Court set him free. There have been cases of alike
description, before and since, as I belive; and the
illegality of slavery in Lower CanadaCanada is a matter too
clear, and too well established to admit of
doubt, altho this laws, in that particular, are the
same as they have been ever since the cession of
the Province by the Treaty of Peace of 1763.

To question 13th Are any or either of the Judges who described
the case to which you refer now alive?

Answer,- I belive the Judges who decided the case of the
negro RobinRobin alias RobertRobert before mentioned, won the
Chief Justice monk, and the Judges OgdenOgden and
:- I have a personal knowledge of the death
on one of them, namely, Judge , who died
in MontrealMontreal, and the other two died in EnglandEngland,
as I have understood and belive, a number of
years ago.

(The witness then answered to the
crop- questions of . , the Defendants'
Counsel as follows:-)

To Cross question 1- Was not the modified form of slavery which
in your examination in Chief you say existed defacto
in CanadaCanada under the French Government
continued for some years- and how many years, to
the best of your knowledge, after the conquest, and
therefore under the British Government ?

Answers- I Cannot say that the modified system of
slavery which existed de facto under the Franch Governtemt, mentioned in my examination in Chief,
continued de facto in CanadaCanada after the treaty of
peace, altho it is probable that several of those


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who before were held in slavery continued to be so
held if they made no application to the proper
anothrities to be discharged, or declared free. The
agency of the Courts of Justice of would work
exercised between individual and individual
unless demanded; and it is therefore most likely
that there were instances of persons called slaves, who
continued to remain as such with the persons who
were called their masters, long after the conquest of
CanadaCanada and while it continued one Provience. Such
voluntaryacquiescence in servitude might be
owing to variousmotives- such as affection- or ignorance
of their rights- or fear. But no legalinferrence
could be drawn from the exercise of such assumed
ownership on the one hand, which no objection was
raised on the other. In the thirty first year of the of george the third (A.D.1790) a statute of
the Parliament of GreatBritainBritain was passed
for the division of what had, until then, been
the Provience of Quebec, otherwise called the
Provience of Canada, into two separate Provinces
of which one was called Upper CanadaCanada, and the
other Lower CanadaCanada. And two years afterwards
(this division of the Provience of Canada having in
that interval him effected,) the legislator of the
Province called Upper CanadaCanadapassed a statute
(33 III chap:7.) confirming the service, during
life, of such negroes, and others, as had been
previously bought or brought into Upper CanadaCanada
under a licence from Governor, but expressly
declaring at the same time that no negro, or other
person who should afterwards come or be bought
into Upper CanadaCanada, and no child thereafterborn
of a negro or other person should be free after the age of
twenty five years.