day were devised by the Negro in his effort to minimize the exactions
of his daily toil. None of these inventions were patented by the
United States as being the inventions of slaves; and it is quite
conceivable that some inventions of value perfected by this class will
be forever lost sight of through the attitude at that time of the
Federal Government on that subject. In 1858 Jeremiah S. Black,
Attorney-General of the United States, confirmed a decision of the
Secretary of the Interior, on appeal from the Commissioner of Patents,
refusing to grant a patent on an invention by a slave, either to the
slave as the inventor, or to the master of the latter, on the ground
that, not being a citizen, the slave could neither contract with the
government nor assign his invention to his master.[16]

Another instance of this sort was an invention on the plantation owned
by Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, President of the late Confederate
States. The Montgomerys, father and sons, were attached to this
family, and some of them made mechanical appliances which were adopted
for use on the estate. One of them in particular, Benjamin T.
Montgomery, father of Isaiah T. Montgomery, founder of the prosperous
Negro Colony of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, invented a boat propeller.
It attracted the favorable attention of Jefferson Davis himself, who
unsuccessfully tried to have it patented. The writer is informed by a
recent letter from Isaiah T. Montgomery that it was Jefferson Davis's
failure in this matter that led him to recommend to the Confederate
Congress the law passed by that body favorable to the grant of patents
for the inventions of slaves. The law was:

"And be it further enacted, that in case the original inventor or
discoverer of the art, machine or improvement for which a patent
is solicited is a slave, the master of such slave may take an
oath that the said slave was the original; and on complying with
the requisites of the law shall receive a patent for said
discovery or invention, and have all the rights to which a
patentee is entitled by law."[17]

The national ban on patents for the inventions of slaves did not, of
course, attach itself to the inventions made by "free persons of
color" residing in this country. So that when James Forten, of
Philadelphia, who lived from 1766 to 1842, perfected a new device for
handling sails, he had no difficulty in obtaining a patent for his
invention