?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--MARYLAND.) Public Sale. By Virtue of an Order of the Orphan's Court of Frederick County. Two Negro Men, One a Slave for Life, the Other for a Term of Years, the Latter a Good Blacksmith. Letterpress broadside, 23-3/4 x 17-3/4 inches; washed, archival paper backed with some repairs to the reverse; ink notations on the reverse relative to land. (WGC) Frederick County, MD, 1845
A large and striking example of how human beings were sold together with the other chattel of an estate. Here, by order of the 'Orphan's Court,' a slave and a bonded servant are being sold together with '9 head of first rate draft horses, 40 head of hogs,' and sundry other equipment from a working farm. It is clearly implied that the deceased had left an orphaned child for whose benefit this auction was being held. Maryland's courts, like those of most states sought to avoid the cost of maintaining orphans. What would generally happen was that the child would go the Orphanage and the money to the county or state for the general maintenance thereof.
