Mar 10, 2011 - Sale 2239

Sale 2239 - Lot 10

Price Realized: $ 6,480
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) MARYLAND. Manuscript document from the court of Frederick, Maryland freeing a Negro woman, and fining the man who brought her into the state to enable her freedom. Single 4to leaf, written on one side and docketed on the reverse. Frederick County, MD, 1799

Additional Details

a rare "recognizance" document. freeing the Negro woman Poll under her own recognizance with a warning about her "good behavior" for the next year; and fining a white man Richard Colgate twenty dollars, for bringing her into the state. The law under which this took place is as follows: "BE it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, That it shall not be lawful, from and after the passing of this act, to import or bring into this state, by land or water, any negro, mulatto or other slave, for sale, or to reside within this state; and any person brought into this state as a slave contrary to this act, if a slave before, shall thereupon immediately cease to be the property of the person or persons so importing or bringing such slave within this state, and shall be free. (decd. 31, 1796)." Maryland was later to have some of the most draconian laws regarding slaves, particularly after the Nat Turner rebellion of 1831. This Recognizance document is the first we have ever seen.