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The law at the heart of the case governs how to divide “goods and chattels.”

The workers departed, taking with them their goods and chattels, leaving only the empty huts behind.

“He told me that I was nothing but goods and chattels, like a horse or a sheep,” Robinson wrote, “that my master had got the pension, and was still receiving it, or his heirs. He said it would be a disgrace to take it from the white man and give it to the negro . . . ‘When you fought that battle, you was your master’s property.’

On the way we meet the fleeing inhabitants trundling their goods and chattels along with them in wheelbarrows, in perambulators, and on their backs.

A “writ of execution” authorizes U.S. marshals to collect “goods and chattels” from the companies.