free negro he is preyed upon by every sharper with whom
he comes in contact, and that he is very poor though an able-bodied
man, and is charged with and punished for every offence, guilty or not,
committed in his neighborhood; that he is without house or home, and lives
a thousand times harder and in more destitution than the slaves of many
planters in this district." He accordingly asked permission by special act
to become the slave of Philip W. Pledger who had consented to receive
him if he could lawfully do so.[69] To provide systematically for such
occasions the legislatures of several states from Maryland to Texas enacted
laws in the middle and late fifties authorizing free persons of color at
their own instance and with the approval of magistrates in each case to
enslave themselves to such masters as they might select.[70] The Virginia
law, enacted at the beginning of 1856, safeguarded the claims of any
creditors against the negro by requiring a month's notice during which
protests might be entered, and it also required the prospective master
to pay to the state half the negro's appraised value. Among the Virginia
archives vouchers are filed for sixteen such enslavements, in widely
scattered localities.[71] Most of the appraisals in these cases ranged from
$300 to $1200, indicating substantial earning capacity; but the valuations
of $5 for one of the women and of $10 for a man upwards of seventy years
old suggest that some of these undertakings were of a charitable nature.
An instance in the general premises occurred in Georgia, as late as July,
1864, when a negro freeman in dearth of livelihood sold himself for five
hundred dollars, in Confederate currency of course, to be paid to his free
wife.[72] Occasionally a free man of color would seek a swifter and surer
escape from his tribulations by taking his own life;[73] but there appears
to be no reason to believe that suicides among them were in greater ratio
than among the whites.

[Footnote 68: _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 161, 162.]

[Footnote 69: _Ibid_., II, 163, 164.]

[Footnote 70: In the absence of permissive laws the self-enslavement of
negroes was invalid. Texas Supreme Court _Reports_, XXIV, 560. And a negro
who had deeded his services for ninety-nine years was adjudged to retain
his free status, though the contract between him and his employer was not
thereby voided. North Carolina Supreme Court _Reports_, LX, 434.]

[Footnote 71: MSS. in the Virg