(1) Yet one incontrovertible fact set him decidedly apart from the rabid cotton state defenders of the peculiar institution: Atchison owned at most one bondman .(2) Every man who strives to become a burgess of this town shall first be examined under oath upon a Book that he is no bondman , but free-born and of free status.(3) And every bondman and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains.(4) Although such laws were most prevalent in the South, the northern colonies also enacted statutes restricting the lives of bondmen and bondwomen.
