Judgments contain civil suits that relate mainly to recovering debt owed to the plaintiff by the defendant. Should the defendant not have funds to repay the debt, the court ordered their property (including enslaved people) to be seized and sold to repay the debt owed to the plaintiff. Judgments also contain suits brought by enslaved people seeking to gain their freedom. See also Freedom Suits.
Descriptions included in this dataset are drawn directly from the original documents and may contain language which is now deemed offensive.
