MILLER _versus_ BELMONTI.
In 1843 Frank and Eva Schuber had moved to a house on the corner of
Jackson and Annunciation streets.[27] They had brought up sons, two at
least, who were now old enough to be their father's mainstay in his
enlarged business of "farming" (leasing and subletting) the Poydras
market. The father and mother and their kindred and companions in long
past misfortunes and sorrows had grown to wealth and standing among the
German-Americans of New Orleans and Lafayette. The little girl cousin of
Salome Müller, who as a child of the same age had been her playmate on
shipboard at the Helder and in crossing the Atlantic, and who looked so
much like Salome, was a woman of thirty, the wife of Karl Rouff.
One summer day she was on some account down near the lower limits of New
Orleans on or near the river front, where the population was almost wholly
a lower class of Spanish people. Passing an open door her eye was suddenly
arrested by a woman of about her own age engaged in some humble service
within with her face towards the door.
Madame Karl paused in astonishment. The place was a small drinking-house,
a mere _cabaret_; but the woman! It was as if her aunt Dorothea, who had
died on the ship twenty-five years before, stood face to face with her
alive and well. There were her black hair and eyes, her olive skin, and
the old, familiar expression of countenance that belonged so distinctly to
all the Hillsler family. Madame Karl went in.
"My name," the woman replied to her question, "is Mary." And to another
question, "No; I am a yellow girl. I belong to Mr. Louis Belmonti, who
keeps this 'coffee-house.' He has owned me for four or five years. Before
that? Before that, I belonged to Mr. John Fitz Müller, who has the
saw-mill down here by the convent. I always belonged to him." Her accent
was the one common to English-speaking slaves.
But Madame Karl was not satisfied. "You are not rightly a slave. Your name
is Müller. You are of pure German blood. I knew your mother. I know you.
We came to this country together on the same ship, twenty-five years ago."
"No," said the other; "you must be mistaking me for some one else that I
look like."
But Madame Karl: "Come with me. Come up into Lafayette and see if I do not
show you to others who will know you the moment they look at you."
The woman enjoyed much liberty in her place and was able to accept this
invitation. Madame Karl took her to the home of Frank and Eva Schuber.
Their front door steps were on the street. As Madame Karl came up to them
Eva stood in the open door much occupied with her approach, for she had
not seen her for two years. Another woman, a stranger, was with Madame
Karl. As they reached the threshold and the two old-time friends exchanged
greetings, Eva said:
"Why, it is two years since last I saw you. Is that a German woman?--I
know her!"
"Well," said Madame Karl, "if you know her, who is she?"
"My God!" cried Eva,--"the long-lost Salome Müller!"
"I needed nothing more to convince me," she afterwards testified in court.
"I could recognize her among a hundred thousand persons."
Frank Schuber came in, having heard nothing. He glanced at the stranger,
and turning to his wife asked:
"Is not that one of the girls who was lost?"
"It is," replied Eva; "it is. It is Salome Müller!"
On that same day, as it seems, for the news had not reached them, Madame
Fleikener and her daughter--they had all become madams in Creole
America--had occasion to go to see her kinswoman, Eva Schuber. She saw the
stranger and instantly recognized her, "because of her resemblance to her
mother."
They were all overjoyed. For twenty-five years dragged in the mire of
African slavery, the mother of quadroon children and ignorant of her own
identity, they nevertheless welcomed her back to their embrace, not
fearing, but hoping, she was their long-lost Salome.
But another confirmation was possible, far more conclusive than mere
recognition of the countenance. Eva knew this. For weeks together she had
bathed and dressed the little Salome every day. She and her mother and all
Henry Müller's family had known, and had made it their common saying, that
it might be difficult to identify the lost Dorothea were she found; but if
ever Salome were found they could prove she was Salome beyond the shadow
of a doubt. It was the remembrance of this that moved Eva Schuber to say
to the woman:
"Come with me into this other room." They went, leaving Madame Karl,
Madame Fleikener, her daughter, and Frank Schuber behind. And when they
returned the slave was convinced, with them all, that she was the younger
daughter of Daniel and Dorothea Müller. We shall presently see what fixed
this conviction.
The next step was to claim her freedom. She appears to have gone back to
Belmonti, but within a very few days, if not immediately, Madame Schuber
and a certain Mrs. White--who does not become prominent--followed down
to the cabaret. Mrs. White went out somewhere on the premises, found
Salome at work, and remained with her, while Madame Schuber confronted
Belmonti, and, revealing Salome's identity and its proofs, demanded her
instant release.
Belmonti refused to let her go. But while doing so he admitted his belief
that she might be of pure white blood and of right entitled to freedom. He
confessed having gone back to John F. Müller[28] soon after buying her and
proposing to set her free; but Müller, he said, had replied that in such a
case the law required her to leave the country. Thereupon Belmonti had
demanded that the sale be rescinded, saying: "I have paid you my money for
her."
"But," said Müller, "I did not sell her to you as a slave. She is as white
as you or I, and neither of us can hold her if she chooses to go away."
Such at least was Belmonti's confession, yet he was as far from consenting
to let his captive go after this confession was made as he had been
before. He seems actually to have kept her for a while; but at length she
went boldly to Schuber's house, became one of his household, and with his
advice and aid asserted her intention to establish her freedom by an
appeal to law. Belmonti replied with threats of public imprisonment, the
chain-gang, and the auctioneer's block.
Salome, or Sally, for that seems to be the nickname by which her kindred
remembered her, was never to be sold again; but not many months were to
pass before she was to find herself, on her own petition and bond of
$500, a prisoner, by the only choice the laws allowed her, in the famous
calaboose, not as a criminal, but as sequestered goods in a sort of
sheriff's warehouse. Says her petition: "Your petitioner has good reason
to believe that the said Belmonti intends to remove her out of the
jurisdiction of the court during the pendency of the suit"; wherefore not
_he_ but _she_ went to jail. Here she remained for six days and was then
allowed to go at large, but only upon _giving still another bond and
security_, and in a much larger sum than she had ever been sold for.
The original writ of sequestration lies before me as I write, indorsed as
follows:
No. 23,041.
Sally Miller ) Sequestration.
)
vs. ) Sigur, Caperton
)
Louis Belmonti. ) and Bonford.
Received 24th January, 1844, and on the 26th of the same
month sequestered the body of the plaintiff and committed her
to prison for safe keeping; but on the 1st February, 1844, she
was released from custody, having entered bond in the sum of
one thousand dollars with Francis Schuber as the security conditioned
according to law, and which bond is herewith returned
this 3d February, 1844.
B.F. LEWIS, d'y sh'ff.
Inside is the bond with the signatures, Frantz Schuber in German script,
and above in English,
[Illustration: THE COURT PAPERS.]
[Illustration: handwritten text]
Also the writ, ending in words of strange and solemn irony: "In the year
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-four and in the
sixty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States."
We need not follow the history at the slow gait of court proceedings. At
Belmonti's petition John F. Miller was called in warranty; that is, made
the responsible party in Belmonti's stead. There were "prayers" and rules,
writs and answers, as the cause slowly gathered shape for final contest.
Here are papers of date February 24 and 29--it was leap year--and April
1, 2, 8, and 27. On the 7th of May Frank Schuber asked leave, and on the
14th was allowed, to substitute another bondsman in his place in order
that he himself might qualify as a witness; and on the 23d of May the case
came to trial.