Location: Red Bluff, Mississippi, United States

Henderson, John, Joseph Watson, Job Brown, Thomas Bradford, R. L. Kennon, Joshua Boucher, H. V. Somerville, and Eric Ledell Smith. "Notes and Documents: Rescuing African American Kidnapping Victims in Philadelphia as Documented in the Joseph Watson Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania." The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 129, no. 3 (2005): 317-45. Accessed May 15, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20093801.
John Henderson to Joseph Watson, December 1,1827
- Red Bluff [Mississippi] Decr. 1. 1827.
Dear Sir,
When I last wrote to you I stated that I would write to Duncan S. Walker Esqr. of Natchez and make the enquiry you requested, and that I would communicate to you such information as I might obtain. I accordingly wrote to him but did not receive any answer. I was at Natchez last week and called on him; he said that after the receipt of my letter he wrote to you on the subject, advising you of the safe arrival of all the documents [O?] he also said that he answered my letter, but it never came to hand. He informed me that none of the kidnapped negroes had recovered their freedom, for want of some white person who could prove that they were entitled to it, documentary evidence alone, not being sufficient for the purpose. Only one [of] them is in Adams county (of which Natchez is the seat of justice) that nine others that he has heard of live in counties too remote for him to attend to their suits, but he has employed lawyers who will give the requisite attention. Five of them were sold in Lawrence, four in Pike and one in Wayne counties in this State. He also said that he had offered a reward of one hundred dollars for information respecting the others that were brought into the State at the same time, but had not then heard of them— Our Legislature will convene on the first monday of next month, when I shall have an opertunity of seeing the members from Lawrence, Pike, and Wayne counties, and shall not fail to enquire of them if they know anything of the sittuation of the unfortunate people who have been sold in these counties. Should I gain any information that I may suppose will in anyway benefit them, or be interesting to you I shall inform you of it. You many command my services in any way you may suppose I might be of service in restoring these people to their liberty and their friends. I need not say that the performance of such duty would give me sincere pleasure.
- Your obt. Servt.
- John Henderson
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