Apr 27, 2017 - Sale 2444

Sale 2444 - Lot 332

Price Realized: $ 875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(HAITI.) Expense ledger showing Haitian assistance to Bolivar's army. Manuscript document, 16 pages, opening to 13 x 17 inches, signed by an official named Adam on the final page; worn with ink burns and moderate loss of text, but the two key entries intact and readily displayed. Les Cayes, September 1816
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The great South American revolutionary Simón Bolívar took refuge in Haiti in December 1815. The following September, he sought refuge in Haiti once more. Offered here is a routine Haitian accounting document listing expenses for a month at the seaport town of Les Cayes. However, it also lists expenses for repairs made to Simon Bolivar's schooners, the Republicaine and the Constitution, recorded in two entries. The first entry reads "620. Aury. Suivant ordre du General President d'Haity des 22 avril dernier pour les reparations de la G'tte Republicaine appartenant au Gouvernment de la Nouvelle Grenade." The cost was 1305 gourdes. The second entry reads "621. au Meme. Suivant l'ordre du President d'Haity pour remboursement des reparations q'il a fait a la Golette de la Nouvelle Grenade Constitution," with a cost of 4637.29 gourdes. These were large sums in the context of Haiti's cash-strapped government; they represent more than half the expenses at Les Cayes for the month. The renovated ships carried Bolívar to South America that December for a successful offensive.
Bolívar later wrote "Should I not let it be known to later generations that Alexandre Pétion is the true liberator of my country?" He promised Haitian president Alexandre Pétion that he would free the slaves of his nation, and later upheld that promise. The expenses here essentially represent Haiti's part in securing that freedom.