(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION) Small archive dealing with runaways

Sale 2503 - Lot 28

Price Realized: $ 1,750

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

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

"I HAVE SOLD DANIEL THIS MORNING FOR 4 HORSES AND 2 MULES" (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Small archive dealing with runaways and slave sales by Robert Stephen. 8 documents (14 pages); moderate to heavy wear, water damage and soiling, loss to some letters. Virginia & Kentucky, 1818-29, 1849

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Additional Details

These letters and documents relate to the slaves of Robert Stephen of Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia). 3 of the letters deal with the apprehension of a runaway slave named Henderson, being held at the Caroline County jail, dated April and May 1818. The letters discuss a reward of $30. In a lengthy letter dated February 1819, Stephen writes of the sale of two children: "A little before Christmas my necessity cured the qualms of conscience, in some measure, which I felt about selling my negroes. I have sold Moria and Fountain to Patterson Bain who purchased them for domestick use, but for life; to gratify their father and mother and reconcile, as well as I could, my own feelings, I sacrificed $250 in the sale of them. I took $750 when Oliver Kean would have given $1000, and had I put them up at publick sale, separately, I am persuaded they would have sold for $1100, but I am better pleased -- the scene was tender enough anyway. It is my present thought to continue the rest such a time as will be sufficient to procure the freedom of the two children if it can be done." Additionally, a group of 4 letters and documents discuss a runaway slave named Daniel, and his subsequent sale "for 4 horses and 2 mules" (Robert Stephen's runaway broadside describing Daniel was sold in a Swann sale, 29 March 2018, lot 22, from a different consignor). An interesting group which goes into detail on several enslaved people.