Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 18

Price Realized: $ 1,188
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(SLAVERY & ABOLITION.) Estate inventory of a prominent Georgia planter naming 58 enslaved people. Manuscript probate document signed by 5 appraisers, headed "A free and perfect inventory & appraism't of the personal estate of Will'm Butler Esq'r, deceas'd, as appears to the subscribers." 4 pages, 15 1/4 x 6 inches, on one folding sheet; separation along fold of second leaf, folds, minor foxing and wear. [Georgia, 1761]

Additional Details

This inventory of William Butler (1715-1761) names 58 of his enslaved workers and their appraised values, from £5 (for "Nelly, an infant 2 days old") up to £59 for a man named Dick. Several are noted as boys, girls, or children, and others are described as "old man" or "old wench." Kit is noted as "blind of one eye," Betty was "a sickly wench," London "a sickly fellow," and Harry "an old fellow maim'd." They are followed in the inventory by "house-hold furniture," livestock, and other property.

This document is undated and bears no place name. However, it is docketed as being recorded in "Book F, folio 97." The recorded copy is discussed in Harold Davis, "The Fledgling Province: Social and Cultural Life in Colonial Georgia," page 135, who describes Butler as "a large planter and slaveholder who had a plantation near the site of Fort Argyle on the Ogeechee River." He established Silk Hope Plantation in Richmond Hill, GA, and his gravestone is thought to be the oldest in Savannah's famous Bonaventure Cemetery.