Selling liquor to enslaved people was a crime so common that Superior Court kept forms specially worded for indictments. At Fall Term 1857, a solicitor signed off on a charge against John Caligan for selling a “pint of spiritous liquors” to “a slave named Joshua the property of Josiah Rawls.”

The same year, a grand jury considered a charge against Henry Locus, a free man of color, for buying liquor for an enslaved man. Another enslaved man, Reddick, was a witness to the alleged crime.

Selling to a Slave (1857), Wilson County Slave Records 1834-1863, www. familysearch.org.