(RECONSTRUCTION) Marriage License for Benjamin Petty Colored

Sale 2377 - Lot 163

Price Realized: $ 406

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 800

(RECONSTRUCTION.) Marriage License for Benjamin Petty, Colored and Mary Robinson, Colored. Partially printed document with engraved border and vignette, accomplished by hand, signed by Petty and Robinson, witnessed and signed by the Clerk, Rod Perry and the white minister, Benjamin Tiller; creases where folded; docketed on the reverse. Louisville, Kentucky, 7 November, 1871

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A fine example of a combination marriage license and certificate from the Reconstruction period. Formal marriage ceremonies for slave couples were generally reserved for house servants. Slave owners might have a white minister or black plantation preacher perform the rite, and a celebration might take place in the 'quarters.' But, for the most part, marriage was more a question of mutual agreement. The official marriage licenses and certificates of Reconstruction were extremely important in restoring basic human rights to tens of thousands of couples who had been living together as de facto man and wife under slavery. Without a legal instrument, the legitimacy of the children of ex-slaves and their rights to inheritance were impossible to prove. The names of several witnesses appear on both the face of the certificate and on the reverse in what seems to be their pencil signatures.