71
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(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—SLAVE SALES.)
Executor’s Sale of Slaves !!!
Letterpress broadside, 13
1
⁄
2
x 9
1
⁄
2
inches; top edge uneven; a couple of early ink spots;
printer’s flaw rendering one portion of the lower text rather faded, yet entirely readable.
(WGC)
Clay County, Missouri, 1860
[2,000/3,000]
A HIGHLY UNUSUAL SLAVE SALE FOR THREE OLD MEN
.
All three are described as “about”
sixty-one, “about” fifty-four etc. In most cases, age was certainly played down rather than up.
So it is a practical certainty that these men were at least the ages stated. The life expectancy of
the average male in 1860 was about 45.
72
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(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—MARYLAND.)
Public Sale. By Virtue of an
Order of the Orphan’s Court of Frederick County. Two Negro Men, One a
Slave for Life, the Other for a Term of Years, the Latter a Good Blacksmith.
Letterpress broadside, 23
3
⁄
4
x 17
3
⁄
4
inches; washed, archival paper backed with some repairs to
the reverse; ink notations on the reverse relative to land. (WGC)
Frederick County, MD, 1845
[1,500/2,000]
A large and striking example of how human beings were sold together with the other chattel of
an estate. Here, by order of the “Orphan’s Court,” a slave and a bonded servant are being sold
together with “9 head of first rate draft horses, 40 head of hogs,” and sundry other equipment
from a working farm. It is clearly implied that the deceased had left an orphaned child for
whose benefit this auction was being held. Maryland’s courts, like those of most states sought to
avoid the cost of maintaining orphans. What would generally happen was that the child would
go the Orphanage and the money to the county or state for the general maintenance thereof.
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72
