Mar 01, 2012 - Sale 2271

Sale 2271 - Lot 18

Price Realized: $ 2,400
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
MR. TURNBULL BUGS FIVE YOUNG WOMEN (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) United States of America. State of Louisiana, City of New Orleans. Before me, Greenbury Ridgely Stringer, a Notary Public, personally appeared Louis Neville Shelton. Partially printed document, accomplished by hand. Four folio pages, written in a clear cursive hand on three, enclosed in folded plain brown wrappers with docket. An exceptional example. Louisiana, Feliciana Parish, 27 February, 1847

Additional Details

An uncommon example of an official City of New Orleans slave sale document wherein Mr. Louis Neville Shelton of Feliciana Parish agrees to "bargain, sell, convey, transfer and deliver with full guarantee against all mortgages, liens, and encumbrances to Mr. Daniel Turnbull of West Feliciana . . . 'Mary Anne,' a mulatress, aged about eighteen years, a seamstress, valued at one thousand dollars; 'Margaret,' a field hand aged about eighteen years valued at the sum of six hundred fifty dollars; 'Delily,' a field hand, aged about seventeen years, valued at the sum of six hundred dollars; 'Anne,' a field hand, aged about seventeen years, valued at six hundred dollars; 'Nancy,' a field hand, aged about seventeen years, valued at six hundred dollars. Thus making the purchase price three thousand, four hundred and fifty dollars." It is worth noting that Mr. Shelton's slaves are all female and all young. It was not uncommon at all in Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular for white slave owner to keep black mistresses.