Hal Morris wrote:
>
> Nell Irwin Painter's _Sojourner Truth_, p22 notes that in 1827, slaves
> born after 1799 could be held as indentured (still slaves in effect -
> whether the census would describe them as such or not I don't know) until
> age 28 if male, 25 if female.  Slaves born before 1799 were free
> unconditionally.
>
> The footnote cites a secondary source - Carl Nordstrom, "The New York
> Slave Code", in _Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 4, no. 1
> (January 1980), p19-20.

I am really grateful for all the help I have received on this item,
and unfortunately I have been so tied up with other work that I have
not been able to follow up all the leads (and I cannot find all of them
here in London in any case). Hal Morris's references look especially
useful and I promise to report the results when the nut is finally
cracked.

John Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Researching the four thousand Black Americans
who took their freedom in the War of 1812