Note 14 — Chapter V

Michigan Hist. Coll., XIV, p. 659. But the actual effect of the Ordinance of 1787, even after 1805 was not absolute. "As late as 1807 Judge Woodward refused to free a negro man and woman on a writ of habeas corpus, holding in effect that as they had been slaves at the time of the surrender in 1796, there was something in Jay's Treaty that forbade their release." Michigan as a Province, Territory and State, 1906, p. 339. "There is a tradition that even as late as the coming of Gen. John T. Mason, as Secretary of the Territory in 1831, he brought some domestic slaves with him from Virginia. It is not improbable that a few domestic servants continued with their old Masters down to the time of the adoption of the State Constitution" (in 1835) ibid., p. 338, note.

Before Detroit and its adjoining territory were given up by the British to the Americans under Jay's Treaty, August, 1796, there were many instances of slaves escaping from the United States territory to British territory in that neighborhood and vice versa. One instance of escape from British territory will suffice.

Colonel Alexander McKee, a well-known and very prominent Loyalist of Detroit, lost a mulatto slave in 1795 and his friend and colleague Captain Matthew Elliott sent a man David Tait to look for him in what is now Indiana. Tait's success or want of success is shown by his affidavit before George Sharp a justice of the peace for the Western District of Upper Canada residing in Detroit. The whole deposition will be given as it illustrates the terms on which the two peoples were living at the time in that country, and shows that even then the charges were made which were afterwards made one of the pretexts for the War of 1812. It is given in the Mich. Hist. Coll., Vol. XII, pp. 164, 165.

"Deposition

"I being sent by Captain Elliott in search of a Molato man name Bill the property of Colonel McKee, which was thought to be at Fort Wayne, But on my Arrival at the Glaize was inform'd by the officer there that he was gone, they said he had gained his liberty, by getting into their lines he being stole from their Country.

"They abused the Gentlemen in this place very & Told me that Governor Sancom (Simcoe) Colonel England and Captain Elliott caused bills in print to be dropped near their fort, Encouraging their Soldiers to desert.

"They called Coll McKee & Capt Elliott dam'd rasculs and said that they gave the Indians Rum to make them Drunk to prevent them from going to Counsil & That Capt Brent they said was a Dam'd rascul and had done everything in his power against them. But they said in Course of Nine Months that they Expected to be in full possession of Detroit and all the Country between their & it & I begged liberty to withdraw when Major Hunt told me to make the best of my way from Whence I came, while I was getting ready to return the Serjeant of their Guard came & Told me it was the Majors orders that I should leave the place immediately & not to stay about any of the Indian Camps. Which Orders I obeyed.

(signed) David Tait.

Sworn before me at Detroit 4th August 1795.

Geo Sharp, J. P. W. D."

Indian Affairs, M. G. VII.