In 1871, former slave Lettie Marshall sued the estate of B. G. Marshall, her former master, arguing that she was entitled to farm two hundred acres of his land in Fort Bend County, Texas. Her claim was based on a “homestead exemption” provision of the Texas Constitution, which exempted the homestead of a “family” from “forced sale for debts” and vested continued occupancy rights in surviving “family” members after the death of the family head. After Emancipation, Marshall and her family had become sharecroppers on B. G. Marshall's estate and continued to farm the land until his death. At trial, Marshall portrayed herself as B. G. Marshall's “confidential servant” whom he treated “like she was one of the family.” As proof that their bond transcended a mere contractual relationship, she noted that he had entrusted her with overseeing a “squad of eight or ten hands,” and that upon occasion she “lent him money” and even “lived in the same house with Marshall, who was a cripple, and … waited on him, ” when her legal status no longer obliged her to do so. Not only did she fulfill “all of the duties and relations to him of mother, sister, and daughter,” but Lettie Marshall, her husband, and their descendents were the only named beneficiaries of his will.
