Henry Blair And Slave Labor

Henry Blair was born in 1807, in Glenn Rose, Maryland. He patented two devices to help boost agricultural productivity. His first invention being the seed planter which allowed more farmers to plant more corn using less labor. He also received a second patent for a cotton planter. Blair was illiterate, and has therefore signed his patent with x signature. The United States patent law allowed freeman and enslave to obtain patents. In 1885 this law was challenged by a slave owner who claimed that he owned all fruits of the slave labor, including his slave’s inventions. This challenge resulted in the change of the law in 1858, which state that slaves were not citizens and therefore weren’t allowed to hold