State: North Carolina Year: 1804
Location: Mecklenburg Location Type: County
Abstract: Cassandra Alexander Houston seeks a divorce from her husband James Houston. The couple married 4 January 1803 and lived together until 28 November of the same year when Cassandra left him "owing (as she verily believes) to her Husbands imbecillity or impotency as a man in procreating his species." Depositions from the petitioner's relatives and others state that they suspected from observing him "make water" that James Houston was not a man like other men; that he had expressed anxiety that "he was not as complete as to genitals as other men;" and that he had on several occasions attempted to "ride" other men and "act with [other men] as man would with a Woman." Marshal Alexander, Cassandra's brother, stated in a deposition that he was once the object of such attempts and noticed at the time that Houston had no testicles. With the marriage unconsummated, the evidence suggesting that Houston "had not the genitals for propagation," and the Alexander's believing that Houston married solely to obtain property, Cassandra Alexander asks to retain her property and be granted a divorce.
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The Digital Library on American Slavery, website University of North Carolina at Greensboro