Enslaved persons

Content Description

This collection contains the 1798 bill of sale for an eight year old Creole boy named Jean Baptiste from Port-au-Prince on the Caribbean island of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). It was written by the Bordeaux-born merchant Arnaud André Robertjot Lartigue (1740-1826) to a " Monsieur Grandidier". It is a single sheet of paper consisting of eleven lines of french detailing the transaction of enslavement including the name and age of the boy and the price of sale of a hundred livre.

Scope and Contents The papers of Anna Maria (Campbell Hickman) Otis Mead Chalmers (1809-1891) and her family offer a deep look into a 19th century American family with a sharp focus on enslaved and formerly enslaved persons. The collection documents the life of a young, widowed woman, Anna Maria Mead Chalmers, who was the granddaughter of General William Hull (1753-1825). She was a mother of four children and became a businesswoman in Richmond, Virginia. She was a writer, an editor of the Southern Churchmen,...

Content Description This collection contains nineteen documents and letters that provide detailed documentation of the ownership of a breeding stallion named Wicked William. The documents include three pedigrees, four stud service tickets, five sales records, and seven stampless letters, which provide a first-hand account of thoroughbred breeding and horse racing in Virginia during the early 19th century. The collection traces the breeding of Wicked William and his pedigree.The collection also...

Content Description

Autographed signed letter from Dixon Evans to his brother James Evans in Fayetteville, North Carolina with his acccount of his shooting, and killing an unnamed enslaved person from Marion, South Carolina. The enslaved person was trying to obtain food from the dairy and smokehouse. Dixon Evans was being sued by Nathaniel Evans who was the owner of the enslaved person. Dixon Evans blames the enslaved person for Dixon's own murderous actions.

Content Description This collection consists primarly of 26 letters of correspondence between Thomas Garland, his wife Jane Moore Taylor Garland (1810-1861), her father William Day Taylor (1781-1858), and Jane's sisters and sisters(-in-law?) F. A. Taylor (Frances Ann Taylor), Clarissa "Clara" Garland Kean (1816-1845), her husband Dr. Ortho Williams Kean (1813-1865), and Mary Garland from New Kent, British Colonial Virginia (Orange County, Virginia) and other locations including Botetourt County, Goochland,...

Content Description

The George Washington Lewis papers consists chiefly of correspondence to and from George Washington Lewis and between other family members, but also includes a few photographs of the Lewis family and the homes of "Claymont", "Shellfield" and "Marmion"; a plat of "Claymont"; newsclippings; notes on Lewis family history and genealogy; and a few financial and legal documents.

Content Description This collection contains a single letter from Colonel Archibald McClean to Pennsylvania Congressman Honorable Francis James, dated February 16, 1842. McClean, a well-connected Virginia lawyer, expresses his support for the anti-slavery efforts of John Quincy Adams. McClean notes his interest in "the debate which has been going on for some time in your House [of Representatives] upon the resolution for censuring Mr. [John Quincy] Adams for presenting a petition which was unpalatable to at...

Content Description This collection contains one photograph of Edmund Parker (1827-1898), formerly enslaved at Mount Vernon, standing guard at George Washington's Tomb circa 1890. In 1841, Parker was brought to Mount Vernon, at the age of fourteen, as one of the enslaved people owned by John Augustine Washington III. He married Susan, an enslaved woman Augustine had purchased in 1852, and the couple went on to have nineteen children, including two sets of twins. Parker fled from Mount Vernon during the Civil...

Content Description This collection contains an account book of a Virginia dentist, Dr. I.T. Walton, who worked in Appomattox, Prince Edward, Charlotte, Mecklenburg, and Albemarle Counties. The book recorded services for white, enslaved, and free Black patients between 1857 and 1861. The account book documents procedures, tooth conditions, and overall health assessment of patients and includes prices for cleanings, toothache drops, "gold plugs," and various "temporary" and "amalgam" fillings, as well as for...

Content Description This collection contains four letters from a formerly enslaved person, Virgil M. Ward to his former Philadelphia employer, Edward Morris Davis, referred to as "Dear Friend " in the letters. Ward was born in Virginia in 1827, and it is unknown how he escaped enslavement. He worked in Philadelphia for Davis at $15.00 per month from April 1st, 1855 to April 13th, 1857. He moved to Ypsilanti, then Canada, and finally to Michigan. The letters are from the year 1860. The first letter...