?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION--RECONSTRUCTION--GEORGIA.) "In the Holy State of Matrimony." Partially printed document, accomplished by hand, being an elaborately printed Marriage License and Certificate for Isaac Owen, a freedman and Margaret Robinson, alias Margerell Baldwin (formerly a slave of Samuel Baldwin), freedwoman, printed on very thin, almost 'onion skin' blue paper. Talbot County, GA, 21 March, 1868
Following Emancipation and the end of the war, many ex-slaves sought to be formally married. While there were marriages in the slave quarters, they were more the tacit agreement of man and wife, possibly sanctified by the master's minister. But it was a different thing to actually have a marriage certificate and to stand before a minister with a best man and a maid of honor. Beside the religious aspect, there was also the practical aspect. If there was ever to be land or other property handed down, it would have to be through legal means.
