(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Kearney Isabella Bill of sale for a

Sale 2368 - Lot 288

Price Realized: $ 875

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

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Kearney, Isabella. Bill of sale for a slave girl to her own father. Document Signed, one partially printed page with manuscript completions, 7 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches; worn with partial loss of Kearney's signature, laid down on paper. [New Jersey?], 19 October 1778

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Additional Details

By this document, Isabella Kearney (1717-1806) sells for six pence to "Negro Adam, his daughter Jenny." Kearney later manumitted slaves in her will (see Swann sale 2171, lot 11). It seems likely that six pence was a token amount equivalent to a manumission. Kearney's life story is given in the on-line article "Morris & Kearney Families of Colonial New Jersey" by the Monmouth County Genealogy Society. She never married and lived much of her adult life running an estate in Shrewsbury, NJ with inherited slave labor. The bill for Adam's daughter was paid in New York money, but was likely drawn up in New Jersey. This document was offered in the April 1894 issue of The Collector, page 80--asking price $5.00.