James Stout

Which is something, but it's not the same as like there being a law saying you could do this, right?

Yeah, right.

You can't point to it as a slavery act.

Yeah, exactly.

Even when we go back in American history, when we're looking for when chattel slavery begins, you can see cases where there are indentured servants, right?

And as a form of punishment, their terms of service are extended.

But then it appears that the black people's terms of service are not extended, presumably because they are assumed to be

in servitude for their entire life by nature of who they are right but like we can't point to a this is when they decided it was going to be like that and those were the rules

Right, right.

Yep.

So, Granville comes into the 1770s well-armed to argue that slavery is not really legal.

Next, per Mike Kay's piece for antislavery.org, in 1772, Sharp defended James Somerset, a slave who had escaped and been recaptured.

This proved to be a crucial test case, as Sharp argued that slavery itself was unlawful in Britain.

Lord Mansfield, the chief justice and presiding judge, was reluctant to reach a conclusion on whether the right to property outweighed the right to freedom and tried to persuade the parties to settle out of court.

When this failed, he attempted to word his decision so that he freed Somerset without setting a precedent.

Despite Mansfield's efforts, most observers, including other judges, thought that the effect of the judgment was to free slaves that were brought to Britain and that this provided a legal avenue for many slaves to obtain their freedom.

So this is kind of the case where Mansfield is doing everything he can for this not to have any wider effect.

But all people hear is that, like, well, this guy got freed, right?

Let's try it some more.

Yeah, yeah.