Mrs. Richards sold out her property and set out to find a better home in
Detroit, Michigan. Some of the best white people of Fredericksburg
commended her for this step, saying that she was too respectable a woman
to suffer such humiliation as the reaction had entailed upon persons of
her race.[3] She was followed by practically all of the best free
Negroes of Fredericksburg. Among these were the Lees, the Cooks, the
Williamses and the De Baptistes. A few years later this group attracted
the Pelham family from Petersburg. They too had tired of seeing their
rights gradually taken away and, therefore, transplanted themselves to
Detroit.

The attitude of the people of Detroit toward immigrating Negroes had
been reflected by the position the people of that section had taken from
the time of the earliest settlements. Slavery was prohibited by the
Ordinance of 1787. In 1807 there arose a case in which a woman was
required to answer for the possession of two slaves. Her contention was
that they were slaves on British territory at the time of the surrender
of the post in 1796 and that Jay's Treaty assured them to her. Her
contention was sustained.[4] A few days later a resident of Canada
attempted under this ruling to secure the arrest and return of some
mulatto and Indian slaves who had escaped from Canada. The court held
that slavery did not exist in Michigan except in the case of slaves in
the possession of the British settlers within the Northwest Territory
July 11, 1796, and that there was no obligation to give up fugitives
from a foreign jurisdiction. An effort was made to take the slaves by
force but the agent of the owner was tarred and feathered.[4]

Generally speaking, Detroit adhered to this position.[4a] In 1827 there
was passed an act providing for the registry of the names of all colored
persons, requiring the possession of a certificate showing that they