Trial of Exum Artist (free man of color)

September 20, 1831 – Superior Court

At a Court continued and held for the County of Southampton on the 20th day of September 1831 for the examination of Exum Artist a free man of color charged with conspiring to rebel and make insurrection.

Present—Robert Goodwyn, James W. Parker, James Trezevant, Ores A. Browne and Alexander Myrick—Gent.

The said Exum Artist was again set to the bar in custody of the jailor of this County and the Court after hearing the testimony and from the circumstances of the case are unanimously of opinion that the prisoner ought to be tried for the said offense at the next Current Superior Court of Law held for the County and thereupon the prisoner is remanded to jail.

Williams Dick here in court acknowledged himself to be indebted to John Floyd Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the sum of three hundred dollars of his goods and chattels lands and tenements to be levied and to the said Governor and his successors for the use of the Commonwealth rendered. Yet upon the condition that if the said Williams Dick shall have the slaves Burwell and Ben before the judge of our Circuit Superior Court of Southampton County at the Courthouse on the first day of the next term then and there to give such evidence as they or either of them know against Exum Artist, a free man of color charged with felony then this recognizance to be void or else to remain in full force and virtue.