The Lost German Slave Girl

by John Bailey

  Buchanan heard him out, then thanked both Mr. Upton and Mr. Grymes for their assistance. He knew that the parties regarded it as an important matter, so he would write his judgment as soon as he could. He stood, everyone in the court rose with him, he bowed to those in the court and left the bench.

  Upton remained slumped in his chair at the bar table. His arms hung either side of the chair. He felt too empty to be tired.

  ELEVEN

  JUDGMENT

  In no part of this country, whether North or South, East or West, does the free negro stand erect and on a platform of equality with the white man. He does, and must necessarily feel this degradation. To him there is but little in prospect but a life of poverty, of depression, or ignorance, and of decay. He lives amongst us without motive and without hope. His fancied freedom is all a delusion. All practical men must admit, that the slave who receives the care and protection of a tolerable master is superior in comfort to the free negro.

  Judge Lumpkin of the Georgia Supreme Court, 1853112

  Late on Saturday July 22, 1844, Sheriff Lewis descended the stairs from the courts in the Presbytere and pinned a paper on the notice board. Among the usual staple of theft, defamation and debt was Sally Miller v. Louis Belmonti and John F. Miller, listed for judgment on the following Tuesday. A few idlers sauntered over to have a look. Within hours the news had spread through the French Quarter. Mr. Wagner, in his dry goods store in Chartres Street, was told by one of his customers, and after confirming the listing with his own eyes, he hurried to tell Mr. Eimer at his business in Customhouse Street. Together they went to inform Mr. Grabau, standing behind the counter of his apothecary shop, then the three of them walked to Exchange Place to advise Upton. He welcomed them into his office, but said he already knew—Mr. Gilmore from the court had sent a message earlier in the day. It meant that Buchanan had written his opinion in less than two weeks, and as Upton served his guests coffee, they fretted over what it meant. Mr. Wagner, who had sat through the case on more days than most, thought that Buchanan, being convinced that Sally Miller was a white person, had decided that she must be freed as soon as possible. Mr. Eimer wasn’t so sure. If only they hadn’t been gypped at the last moment by that business with the baptismal certificate. What a pity Madame Bertrand couldn’t tell Buchanan what she knew. Upton agreed and apologized for mixing up the time they were to meet to obtain her evidence. It wasn’t his fault, they said. They shouldn’t have left it all to him. Mr. Grabau asked Upton if he thought they would win. They could only wait, said Upton diplomatically, but then added that he remained hopeful. Upton’s visitors shook his hand as they departed and thanked him for his assistance. He had done all that he could—whatever the result might be.

  After they left, Upton wrote to Eva Schuber informing her of the news. He said he was leaving it to her to contact all who should know, and in particular to make sure that Sally Miller attended. Although he didn’t mention the possibility, he had it at the back of his mind that if they lost, Sally was required to submit to capture to answer the thousand-dollar bond the German community had posted for her.

  Like almost every issue that fed the city’s imagination, opinions on the outcome of the case were divided, and largely on ethnic grounds. The Americans were stoutly behind Miller. It was a preposterous story—just the sort of thing the ill-educated German immigrants might believe. Many of them knew Miller; true, he was a difficult character, but they couldn’t accept that he would enslave a young white girl. And as for the kindly Mrs. Canby being involved, well, that was just impossible. The lower classes of the city, particularly the Germans and the Irish, being of immigrant stock, were natural backers of Sally Miller, while the Creoles were willing to believe that the Americans were capable of anything if there was money in it. Support for Sally Miller among the gens de couleur libre was lukewarm—convinced, as they were, that there was only a fuss being made because of her pretensions that she was German.

  Buchanan delivered his judgment on Tuesday, June 25, 1844. It was a day of dripping heat, overhung with the certainty of an afternoon thunderstorm. Heat rose in waves from the sidewalks, and the air was thick to breathe. Horses hitched to carriages beside the Place d’Armes flicked flies with their tails from one to the other, while their drivers retreated under the shade of trees. Men going about their business in the city streets slipped loose their collars but still found themselves drenched with perspiration well before they had reached their destination. Women preparing to brave the heat wore loose-flowing muslin and insisted that their servants walk beside them, angling an umbrella to shield them from the sun.

  At the Presbytere, a crowd gathered early, anxious to secure a place by the time Buchanan took the bench. As soon as the doors opened, a sharp-elbowed crowd filed up the stairs and into the courtroom. Shortly before the hour of eleven o’clock, the gentlemen of the press, lawyers, and the litigants arrived. Sally Miller and Eva Schuber took their usual place behind Upton. A year had passed, almost to the day, from when Sally had run away from Belmonti, and she must have wondered if this would be her last day of freedom. At the other end of the table, Grymes, Micou, and Cannon chatted about their next case and the latest doings at the bar. Miller entered the courtroom and sat by himself behind Grymes. He looked fixedly ahead. As usual, Belmonti hadn’t bothered to attend. The temperature in the courtroom began to rise. The windows were opened, but it made no difference—there was no breeze to be had.

  When, exactly on the hour, Buchanan appeared, he held several sheets of paper scored in his own hand. During the past days he had been through several drafts. He had altered words, crossed out paragraphs, added lines, consulted his notes, and written it out again. But throughout, not once had he wavered in the certainty of what his decision would ultimately be. With head bowed, he commenced to read:

  The Plaintiff alleges that she is wrongfully held in slavery by the Defendant; that she is free and white; that she was born of Bavarian parents, who emigrated to this place about the year 1817, the Plaintiff being then about three years of age; that she with the rest of her family, consisting of her father, a brother and a sister, were sold or bound to service as Redemptioners, to one John F. Miller, who took them to Attakapas; that her father having died, Mr. Miller kept the petitioner as his slave, and sold her as such to the Defendant.

  Buchanan turned a page. He was, he said, satisfied that a person named Sally or Salomé Müller had arrived in New Orleans in March 1818 with her father and it may be safely assumed, from all the testimony, that she was not more than three years of age.

  The evidence goes to show that Daniel Müller and his family went up to Attakapas … within a few weeks after their arrival, in the service of some person: but who that person was, is not shown. One very important fact is however shown to my entire satisfaction by the evidence, which is that it could not have been John F. Miller, the warrantor, who bought the services of the German family in question.

  At this Upton felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, but then he consoled himself that all was not lost—yet. It was still open to Buchanan to rule that although it wasn’t known how she became a slave, there was sufficient evidence to show that she was Salomé Müller.

  Buchanan continued:

  At this point, we lost sight of the little German child. … She is supposed to have been rediscovered, some twenty-five years afterwards in the person of a slave of the Defendant, living below New Orleans. The supposed identity is based upon two circumstances. First a striking resemblance of the Plaintiff to the child above mentioned, and to the family of that child. Second, two certain marks, or moles, on the insides of the thighs, (one on each thigh,) which marks are similar in the child and the woman. This resemblance and these marks are proved by several Witnesses. Are they sufficient to justify me in declaring the Plaintiff to be identical with the German child in question?

  There he paused, but did not look up. “I answer this question in the negative.”

  A low sigh escaped from the peopl
e sitting behind Upton as the significance of Buchanan’s words sunk in. Then, multiple soft whispers translated the judge’s words into German. Buchanan, in a flat, controlled voice, continued. He listed five reasons why he couldn’t accept that the plaintiff was a free German woman. First, there was nothing to show that the child of Daniel Müller wasn’t still existing in Attakapas. Second, the ages of the two individuals didn’t correspond. Third, Sally Miller had told various witnesses that she had come from Mobile, or across the sea, or from Georgia, or was of Indian parents—all explanations totally at variance with the origin claimed for her. Fourth, there was “no trace in her appearance, or language, of a German origin, as there would have been, if she had arrived here in 1818 of an age to speak plainly, and speaking plainly the German tongue, as proved by Mrs. Schuber.” And finally, “the Plaintiff is proved to have been brought to bed of a child in 1825, which is inconsistent with the supposition of her having been only three years of age in 1818.”

  Judge Buchanan continued to read from his notes:

  I must admit that the family of the Redemptioners seem to be firmly convinced of the identity which the Plaintiff claims. Their convictions, however sincere, are no reasons for declaring the Plaintiff free, in the face of many cogent presumptions to the contrary … it is quite out of the question to take away a man’s property upon grounds of this sort.

  Now Buchanan, for the first time, directed his gaze at the German people staring blankly back at him.

  I would suggest that the friends of the Plaintiff, if honestly convinced of the justice of her pretensions, should make some effort to settle à l’amiable with Mr. Belmonti who has honestly and fairly paid his money for her. They would doubtless find him well disposed to part on reasonable terms, with a slave from whom he can scarcely expect any service, after what has passed.113

  With that, Buchanan handed counsel copies of what he had just read to them and left the bench.

  Buchanan’s judgment was crushing in its certainty. Miller had won. The suit was dismissed with costs. Sally Miller, the white slave, was still a slave. Upton looked across at her. No flicker of emotion showed on her face. The German people had heard, but they didn’t move. Eva Schuber slumped in dismay in her chair.

  Miller strode to the bar table and stumbled through a speech of gratitude as he pumped Grymes’s hand up and down. Then he turned to congratulate Cannon and Micou. The four of them packed their bags and departed, Grymes pausing for a moment at the door of the court, to wish Upton good morning. They didn’t even bother to take their prize with them. She was now Belmonti’s property and he wasn’t in court to collect her. Sally Miller sat alone, staring into some middle distance of her thoughts, as her supporters crowded around Upton, demanding to know what had gone wrong. How could the judge rule that she was a slave? Why hadn’t he believed them? What about the proof of the moles? Hadn’t they told him how certain they were that she was Daniel Müller’s child?

  Upton, shaking with emotion, stood up. Never had there been such an injustice, he declared to those crowding around him. He was just as astounded as they were, but what could you expect from someone like Buchanan? He turned and strode down the stairs and out into the Place d’Armes, Eva Schuber keeping pace with him as best she could, picking up pieces of paper flying from his bag, as if they still mattered.

  The next day, Upton called Eva and Sally to his office and told them that the fight wasn’t over yet. He would ask for a new trial, and if that failed, he would appeal to the Supreme Court.

  The two women told him that Sally had moved back into the Schuber house. She would be safer there. Eva vowed that if Belmonti came looking for her, she and her husband would fight him to the death. Upton said he hadn’t heard from Belmonti’s lawyers about reclaiming Sally, but he guessed that it would only be a matter of time. Sally asked if Belmonti could take her at any moment. Upton conceded that it was possible. He was sorry, but legally she was Belmonti’s property again. Hopefully, not for long. That was why it was important to quickly lodge the paperwork for a new trial. He would do that tomorrow. Once the motion was filed, the bond would continue, so she would be safe again. But he needed grounds. This is what he wanted to talk to them about. They must search again for someone who knew Sally during those vital few years when she was first made a slave of Miller. They must look for additional witnesses.

  After they had departed, Upton began to write out the motion for a new trial. Under Louisiana law, the judge who had heard the case had a judicial discretion to order a new trial if good grounds— cette revision, said the French side of the Code—were shown. The usual cause was that some vital new information had been discovered that could not, with due diligence, have been previously obtained. The emphasis was on the new —a remake of old evidence wouldn’t do, nor additional evidence piled on to support a point already made.114

  Upton was now totally convinced of the justice of his client’s cause. He may have been prepared to admit to himself that when he first agreed to appear for Sally Miller, he had an eye to furthering his own career by the publicity the case was bound to bring, but he had moved far beyond that. He was now emotionally bound to her fate. Her life so far had been one of perpetual misfortune, and he was determined to do all he could to give her a fresh start. It was all very well for Buchanan to announce that she was a slave because he could find no trace of her German origins, but given the horror of her life why wouldn’t her memories be obliterated? Her mother, her father, and her brother had died one after another before her eyes. Then her elder sister had disappeared without a trace. She had been scarified into subjection at the hands of Miller. Given one name after another. Her children taken from her. Had Buchanan no perception of what it must have been like for her?

  New trials were hardly ever granted, and there was no reason to think that the motion to be filed on behalf of Sally Miller would be the exception—but that didn’t stop Upton. As he sat down to reread Buchanan’s judgment, he boiled at the injustice of it. The point the German community regarded as decisive, the moles on Sally Miller’s thighs, had been briefly referred to, but then, without any judicial explanation, had been totally ignored. Buchanan hadn’t bothered to explain why he had so offhandedly dismissed the claims by Sally Miller’s relatives and friends that they could recognize her. Miller’s failure to produce Williams wasn’t referred to. The admissions made by General Lewis, that he saw a resemblance between Sally Miller and members of her family, wasn’t mentioned. Nor was Wheeler’s evidence of having seen Sally in Miller’s yard in 1819 or 1820.

  Upton’s greatest irritation, however, was directed at a particular paragraph that Buchanan had written:

  I am guided altogether, by the numerous and respectable witnesses of the defendant, and … put out of view the evidence of Poigneau and Wood, witnesses of the plaintiff as being entitled to no credit, from the contradictions and absurdities which they contain, and the irreconcilable variances from the evidence of all the witnesses of the defendant.

  To this, Upton wrote:

  It seems to me that Madame Poigneau would be the very person who would be most apt to know the facts of which she speaks. She was a poor white woman, often in the yard of Miller with his servants, lived in the immediate neighborhood and saw much of the plaintiff. Wood saw much of her also; he was of that class and standing at the time, and in such employ about the house, as to give him far better opportunity of knowing the girl than had the family music master, the seamstress, or the haberdasher.

  He added: “The distinction being drawn was that the plaintiff’s witnesses were second table, while the defendant’s witnesses live in the parlor, and the parlor witnesses were more credible.”115

  The new evidence that Upton required was supplied by Nathan W. Wheeler, the impoverished disgruntled brother-in-law of John Fitz Miller, who visitedUpton’s office later that day. Since appearing in court, he had remembered something else: Miller had another slave girl, named Bridget. She was about Sally Miller’s age, but cons
iderably darker. Miller owned her for several years from about 1822, and then she had died. This second Bridget was in addition to Mrs. Canby’s cook, also known as Bridget.

  Wheeler and Johnson between them had placed two Marys and three Bridgets in Miller’s household. As Upton thought further on the matter, it occurred to him that these slaves, bearing the same name, gave Miller plenty of opportunities to switch Salomé’s identity. Was it possible, he wondered, that when one of them had died, Mrs. Canby and Miller, by forcing Salomé to alter her name, had passed her off as the deceased? Then, as the years passed, in order to cover their tracks, they had confirmed her new identity on sale notes and, ultimately, her name and that of her child on the baptismal certificate?

  But in this puzzle, nothing fell easily into place. If Miller had captured Salomé Müller soon after the death of her father, how and where had he kept her—and perhaps her elder sister as well—until he subjugated their wills and had them believing they were slaves? He would have required a place isolated from prying eyes. If Miller had property in Attakapas at the time when Sally was lost, none of his friends or business associates knew of it, and investigations by Sally’s backers hadn’t been able to discover it. The sawmill? It didn’t seem feasible. Although it was surrounded by a wooden fence and located at the edge of the city, traders and employees were coming and going all the time. Where else, then? Miller owned several houses, one in the American quarter and, later on, one in the Faubourg Marigny. But witnesses had spoken of constant visitors and grand parties at both of those houses.