(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Marriage license for two ex slaves M

Sale 2171 - Lot 59

Price Realized: $ 900

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

Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800

BEAUTIFULLY PRINTED MARRIAGE LICENSE (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Marriage license for two ex-slaves, Moses Ferguson and Jane Owens. Partially printed document, accomplished by hand, 10x8 inches; printed using eight distinct type-fonts within an elaborately engraved border. Double-matted and framed. Talbot County, Georgia, 1868

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a rare reconstruction period marriage license for "Moses Ferguson, Freedman," and "Jane Owen, Freedwoman," witnessed "Oath of James Epps, Freedman." Issued in Talbot County in the state of Georgia "To any Minister of the Gospel, Jewish Minister, Judge or Justice of the Peace: ''YOU ARE HEREBY AUHORIZED." Formal marriage ceremonies for slave couples were generally reserved for house servants. Slave owners might have a white minister or a black plantation preacher perform the rite, and a large feast might take place in the "quarters."
But for most slaves, marriage was more a question of mutual agreement. This more often than not often involved children. The official marriage licenses of Reconstruction were extremely important in restoring basic human rights to tens of thousands of couples who had been living together as man and wife under the "Peculiar Institution" of slavery. Without the legal instrument of a marriage license, the legitimacy of the children of ex-slaves as well as their right of inheritance was impossible to prove.