Feb 27, 2003 - Sale 1961

Sale 1961 - Lot 15

Price Realized: $ 978
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
HENRY BUTLER BUYS THE FREEDOM OF HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN (SLAVERY and ABOLITION.) Manuscript Slave Document, for the sale of a female slave and her 4 children. 2 page, 4to; with an integral docketing leaf. Washington, 1839

Additional Details



Susan and her 4 children were sold by Mary Ann Graham to Henry Butler, the husband of Susan and the father of the children. The entire transaction involved only $100. The small sum of money involved in the transaction, and the sale of a wife and children to the husband and father suggests that Ms. Graham was sympathetic to the family. Washington was a notorious slave market in the 1820s and 1830s. In 1838 (a year before this sale), Henry Lawrence Pinckney of South Carolina was able to log-roll a bill through the House effectively placing a nation-wide "gag rule" on any petitions in favor of abolition.