Government commissioners upheld an enslaved woman’s freedom over her enslaver’s claim

Evidence

Before the commissioners, Bibb testified that Beckett and her children were fugitive slaves, rather than emancipated, and she handed over “the warrant she had sworn out for their arrest.” In a 2–1 vote, the commissioners affirmed their earlier decision, and Beckett and her children remained free. They reasoned that Bibb had not really tried to enforce the warrant given that Beckett’s whereabouts were well known. On October 1, 1862, Charlotte Beckett and her children were declared free once and for all. — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 109