REGULATORY DECREE of the Conseil du Petit Goave, which forbids all persons to take nègres as pledge for sums lent

The Procureur-Général du Roi entered and said: that he has noticed that there is being introduced into the jurisdiction of the Conseil a usury all the more dreadful because it is colored with the specious pretext of mortgage, by means of which those who are in poverty find a way to free themselves of the costs that the proceedings of their Creditors would bring, which they avoid by borrowing from certain people the sums they need, giving them a certain number of nègres, under the specious name of mortgage, which in reality is a pledge and not a mortgage, which does not put the Creditor in the actual possession and enjoyment of the property or goods mortgaged, and which, on the contrary, must remain in that of the proprietor until the mortgage is discharged.