How an Enslaved Man’s Self-Defense Sparked a Historic Court Ruling in NC
By Jordan Meadows Staff Writer On January 22, 1834, a violent confrontation at the Walnut Creek plantation in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, would lead to one of the most significant legal decisions in the antebellum South. Will, an enslaved man owned by James S. Battle, became the center of the landmark case State v. Will, which challenged the legal framework of slavery and recognized, however narrowly, the moral agency