Nance: A Girl of Color and Her Lawyer Abraham Lincoln

by Kevin Orlin Johnson

We've had persistent problems with Amazon's not properly forwarding your orders to us. This book is available and ready to ship within one business day. Please visit us at Pangaeus dotcom for orders. Thank you. Nance, a twelve-year-old girl of color, was working in Springfield, Illinois, as a servant at the house of Thomas Cox. Suddenly the county coroner John Howard seized her, beat her nearly to death, chained her, and imprisoned her, without reasonable or probable cause and without medical attention for a week — and exposed her at a public sale. We know this from documents buried in the files of the courts of the State of Illinois. Because Nance did what no other lady of color ever did in the state’s history. She sued for her freedom. And she kept suing for fourteen years, twice in the Supreme Court, until she proved her right to freedom with the help of a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Nance, even in chains, filed some of the most important slave cases in American history. But her story has never been told. Until now.

312 pages

Published May 13, 2022