Wartime Slave Hire, Arkansas
Autograph promissory document signed. Dover, Arkansas, 3 January 1863. 1 page. Signed by H.M.F. Chany by mark. Attested by J.J. Brown. Docketed to verso.
A contract recording the hire of an enslaved family in Arkansas just two days after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The document promises that H.M.F. Chany will pay W.E. Jamison "seventy five dollars for the hire of a negro girl and child (Harriett and Charity)...[and] to furnish said negroes good comfortable clothing, pay their doctor's bills and taxes, and return them to said Jamison."
The document adds: "in case they become in danger of being captured by the enemy [I will] pay for the time I may have had them." The fear was well-founded, as Dover, Arkansas was burned by bushwackers just a few months after this contract was signed.
Documents related to slavery from this time in Arkansas are exceedingly scarce, especially with acknowledgment of the ongoing war.
[Slavery, Abolition, Enslavement, Emancipation, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Union, Confederate, African Americana, African American History, Black History, Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera]
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Autograph promissory document signed. Dover, Arkansas, 3 January 1863. 1 page. Signed by H.M.F. Chany by mark. Attested by J.J. Brown. Docketed to verso.
A contract recording the hire of an enslaved family in Arkansas just two days after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. The document promises that H.M.F. Chany will pay W.E. Jamison "seventy five dollars for the hire of a negro girl and child (Harriett and Charity)...[and] to furnish said negroes good comfortable clothing, pay their doctor's bills and taxes, and return them to said Jamison."
The document adds: "in case they become in danger of being captured by the enemy [I will] pay for the time I may have had them." The fear was well-founded, as Dover, Arkansas was burned by bushwackers just a few months after this contract was signed.
Documents related to slavery from this time in Arkansas are exceedingly scarce, especially with acknowledgment of the ongoing war.
[Slavery, Abolition, Enslavement, Emancipation, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Union, Confederate, African Americana, African American History, Black History, Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera]
Estimate
Reserve
Time, Location
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