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"Slaves Wanted. – Wanted to purchase, slaves of every description, at the New Orleans depot, No. 156, Common-street, for which liberal prices will be paid. Slaves will also be sold on commission, and purchasers are invited to call and see a well-selected lot of slaves offered at low prices.
Elihu Creswell."
"Slaves Wanted. – E. Creswell, No. 163, Gravier-street, will pay the most liberal price for slaves of all descriptions; and those who have slaves for sale will do well to give him a call before selling to others. He will also exchange slaves, sell slaves on commission; and those who wish to purchase will do well to give him a call before buying elsewhere, as he keeps on hand a good selection of slaves, sold under full guarantee, and good reference for titles given."
The foregoing advertisements give us some faint idea of the demand for slaves. Those which follow are of slaves for sale. We cannot commence more appropriately than with these, taken from the "New Orleans Picayune: " —
"Slaves for Sale. – Hope H. Slatter, who has retired from the trade, has sold to me his establishment in Baltimore, and leased for a number of years his old stand at the corner of Esplanade and Moreau-streets, at which place I shall keep up a large and general assortment of slaves for sale, imported direct from Maryland and Virginia.
Walter L. Campbell,Successor to Hope H. Slatter."
"Negroes, Negroes. – Just received, and for sale at No. 7, Moreau-street, Third Municipality, a large and likely lot of negroes, consisting of field-hands, house-servants, and mechanics. Will be receiving new lots regularly from Virginia during the season.
Wm. F. Talbott."
The same paper of Oct. 18, 1846, contains the following two: —
"Slaves for Sale, No. 165, Gravier-street. – The subscriber has always on hand a number of slaves, consisting of house-servants, field-hands, and mechanics, which will be sold low, for cash or negotiable paper. Persons desirous of purchasing will find it to their interest to call and examine. The subscriber will also receive and sell on consignment any negro that may be entrusted to his care.
"He would also respectfully notify persons engaged in the slave-trade, that he is prepared to board them and their slaves on the most reasonable terms.
Wm. H. Merritt.
"Reference: J. Barelli, C. J. Mansoni."
"Negroes for Sale. – We, the subscribers, have for sale, at our establishment, No. 159, Gravier-street (block in the rear of St. Charles Exchange), a large lot of valuable slaves, suitable for plantation, house-servants, &c. &c. Persons desirous of purchasing will find it to their interest to call and examine.
"We will also receive and sell on consignment any negroes that may be entrusted to us. We would also respectfully notify owners of negroes, and persons engaged in the slave-trade, that we are prepared to board negroes, and furnish traders with rooms, &c.
"Our house is roomy, airy, and dry. Terms reasonable.
John Buddy.Wm. H. Merritt."
Mr. Wm. H. Bolton, whose name is appended to the next advertisement, is from Tennessee: —
"Negroes for Sale. – I have again returned to this market, with eighteen or twenty likely negroes. I have located on the corner of Main and Adams-streets. I have plough-boys, men, women, and girls, and some very fancy ones. I intend to keep a constant supply through the season, and will not be undersold by any in market. My motto is, 'the swift penny; the slow shilling' I never get.
"I will also pay the highest cash price for young negroes.
W. H. Bolton.
"November 21, 1846."
To what uses these "very fancy" girls are put may be inferred from the following advertisement,[R] taken from the "Norfolk Herald: " —
"Notice. – For sale, a colored girl, of very superior qualifications, who is now in Mr. Hall's jail in Norfolk. She is what speculators call a fancy girl; a bright mulatto, fine figure, straight, black hair, and very black eyes; remarkably neat and cleanly in her dress and person. I venture to say, that there is not a better seamstress, cutter and fitter of ladies' and children's dresses in Norfolk, or elsewhere, or a more fanciful netter of bead bags, money-purses, &c.
"Any lady or gentleman in Norfolk or Portsmouth, who may wish to purchase a girl of this description (whom I consider the most valuable in Virginia), may take her and try her a month or more at my risk, and, if she does not suit and answer the description here given, may return her to Mr. Hill.
"The cause of offence for which I intend, though reluctantly, to sell her, is, that she has been recently induced by the persuasions of some colored persons to make her escape with them to the North, in which she failed, and is now for sale. – Apply to the subscriber, in Suffolk, or to James Murdaugh, Esq. or to C. C. Robinson, of Portsmouth, for further information.
Joseph Holladay."
Tennessee can also claim the honor of having such careful traders as Mr. J. S. Curtis: —
"One Hundred "A No. 1" Negroes. – I have on hand one hundred negroes, men, women, boys, and girls, at my depot, in Gaine's brick building, immediately back of Howard's Row, between the Gayoso and Herron House. I have judicious men purchasing in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Middle Tennessee, and will keep constantly on hand a large number.
"Persons wishing to purchase will do well not to trade, without first calling to see my stock.
J. S. Curtis.
"Memphis, November 20, 1846."
The "Spirit of Liberty" contains the following: —
"Southern Planters, wishing to purchase negroes, would do well to give me a call before they make their purchases, as it would be greatly to their advantage. Negroes purchased and sold on reasonable commission. Apply at
Scott's Intelligence Office, No. 10, Exchange Place."
In the "Daily Richmond Enquirer," Sept 1, 1847, we find this: —
"Negroes At Auction. – On Monday, the 6th of September (Albemarle Court day), at Charlottesville, there will be sold at public auction about sixty valuable negroes, of every description.
"August 31."
In the same paper, Jan. 25, 1848, we find this: —
"Twenty Negroes. – Will be sold Friday, 28th inst. at 10 o'clock, twenty likely young negroes, viz. ten able-bodied men, three boys, four women, and three girls.
"Will be added to the above sale, a negro-man, 40 years of age, who is a first-rate carpenter by trade, also a rough blacksmith.
"Benj. Davis, Auctioneer,No. 3, Wall-street."
The following is taken from the "Alabama Argus," published at Dayton, Ala.: —
"For Sale Sixty Negroes. – By order of the Hon. the Orphans' Court of Marengo County, the undersigned, administrator of the estate of Moses W. Alexander, deceased, will, on Monday, the 5th of February, 1849, at the plantation of said Moses W. Alexander, deceased, in the Cane Brake, one mile south of Col. Pickens's mills, offer at public sale, to the highest bidder, a lot, numbering sixty, of the likeliest and best negroes ever sold in the South. They are all family negroes, – not bought up by speculators from every State in the South, but raised by different men, in families from five to twenty each. Among this stock of negroes are some able-bodied, stout, and valuable negro-men, and several likely young boys, from 10 to 18 years of age; also some likely negro-women, girls, and children. Among the same, A No. 1 cotton-pickers; a good weaver; and also one negro, who is a very good carpenter and blacksmith. – Terms of sale, twelve months' credit, with approved security.
J. M. Alexander, Administrator.
"January 5."
The following advertisement is before us ("Spirit of Liberty"): —
"Valuable Slaves at Auction. – I will sell on Saturday, the 14th inst. in front of the Market-house, one woman and her child. The woman is about 24 years old; and the child, a girl, about 5 years of age. The woman accustomed to house-business, also to the farm. The negroes are very likely, and warranted sound. They will be sold on a credit of sixty days for negotiable paper satisfactorily endorsed.
Charles Phelps, Auctioneer.
"Nov. 5."
The following is taken from a paper published at Opelousas (La.): —
"Auction Sale. – The undersigned will offer for sale, through the ministry of a public auctioneer, on her plantation, near Carancro, in the parish of St. Landry, on Monday the 5th day of February next, and the following days, one hundred choice slaves, of both sexes and different ages, among which is a good blacksmith and several other mechanics. These slaves will be sold separately, and under full and satisfactory guarantee of titles. – 8 ox-carts, 69 work-oxen, 20 mules, 20 work-horses, 1,500 barrels of corn, 12,500 cypress pickets.
Conditions of Sale. – The slaves will be sold on a credit of one and two years from the day of sale; purchasers giving sufficient security to the satisfaction of the vendor, and the slaves remaining specially mortgaged until final payment of principal and the interest which may accrue thereon, at the rate of eight per cent per annum from time due until final payment. The conditions of the sale of the movable property will be made known on the day of sale.
Widow Hypolite Cretien.
"Opelousas, January 3d, 1849."
Literally speaking, tens of thousands of such advertisements as these might be adduced. You can hardly open a Southern paper without finding several.
Part of the trade is carried on by water. This part of the trade is regulated by Act of Congress (Act March 2, 1807, sect. 8-10), and slavers sail apparently with commendable regularity. The following notice is taken from the "National Intelligencer" a few years since: —
"Alexandria and New Orleans Packets. – Brig Tribune, Samuel C. Bush, master, will sail as above on the 1st January; brig Isaac Franklin, William Smith, master, on the 15th January; brig Uncas, Nathaniel Boush, master, on the 1st February. They will continue to leave this port on the 1st and 15th of each month, throughout the shipping season. Servants that are intended to be shipped will at any time be received for safe keeping at twenty-five cents a day.
John Amfield, Alexandria."
The two following advertisements are taken from the "American Beacon" of January 24, 1848, published at Norfolk, Virginia. They are advertisements of the same person, who, as we have just seen, offers to "attend to shipping of negroes to any of the Southern ports: " —
"For New Orleans. – Virginia and Louisiana Line Packets. The fast-sailing packet barque Bachelor, Page, master, will sail for the above port from the 20th to the 27th inst. For freight, cabin or steerage passage, for which she has good accommodations, apply to
G. W. Apperson."
"For New Orleans. – Virginia and Louisiana Line Packets will commence their regular trips to the above port the 20th September, and continue monthly throughout the season. They consist of the following vessels, to wit, barque Parthian, Capt. G. W. Allen; barque Bachelor, Capt. Hiram Horton; barque Phœnix, Capt. Nathaniel Boush.
"The above vessels are all of the first class, and commanded by long and experienced commanders. – For further information, apply to
G. W. Apperson."
This Capt. Nath. Boush is probably the same man who figures in Mr. Amfield's advertisement. But Southern traders by no means have a monopoly of this coastwise slave-trade. The barque Parthenon, Mellish, master, cleared from the port of New York, October 10, 1846, for Richmond, Virginia, avowedly "to load with slaves for the port of New Orleans."
How business-like is the following letter from a North Carolina slave-trader to his consignee in New Orleans! ("A Reproof of the American Church," p. 22): —
"Halifax, N.C. November 16, 1839.
"Dear Sir, – I have shipped in the brig Addison, prices as below: – No. 1, Caroline Ennis, $650; 2, Silvy Holland, $625; 3, Silvy Booth, $487.50; 4, Maria Pollock, $475; 5, Emeline Pollock, $475; 6, Delia Averit, $475.
"The two girls that cost $650 and $625 were bought before I shipped my first. I have a great many negroes offered to me; but I will not pay the prices they ask, for I know they will come down. I have no opposition in market. I will wait until I hear from you before I buy, and then I can judge what I must pay. Goodwin will send you the bill of lading for my negroes, as he shipped them with his own. Write often, as the times are critical, and it depends on the prices you get to govern me in buying.
"Yours, &c.G. W. Barnes.
"Mr. Theophilus Freeman, New Orleans."
The number of slaves thus bought and sold can never be known with perfect accuracy. Hon. John G. Palfrey, in his excellent Papers on the Slave Power (p. 83), estimates the number annually sold from the more northerly Slave States at not less than forty thousand! We think his estimate within the truth.
In the course of a single year, 1835-6, no less than forty thousand slaves are said to have been sold out of Virginia alone! ("Niles's Reg." Oct. 8, 1836.) The "New York Journal of Commerce" of Oct. 12, 1835, contained a letter from a Virginian, whom the editor calls "a very good and sensible man," asserting that twenty thousand slaves had been driven to the South from Virginia during that year, of which nearly one fourth was then remaining. But 1835 and 1836 were years of great speculation. In 1837 the consequent severe pressure in the money market was attributed by a committee of the citizens of Mobile (Ala.) in part to over-trading in slaves. Their report states, that purchases by Alabama of that species of property from other States since 1833 have amounted to about ten million dollars annually.
The slaves increase in about the same ratio in all of the Slave States. If the warmer latitudes of the extreme South are more congenial to them, and favor their increase more than the climate of Virginia, this effect is, at least, fully balanced by the great amount and unhealthy character of much of the labor on the sugar, rice, and cotton plantations, and by the great extent to which slave-breeding is carried in the more northern States. The following table exhibits the rates of increase of the slaves, every ten years, from 1790 to 1840: —
Accordingly, for the fifty years ending in 1840, the slaves increased on an average a little over twenty-eight per cent every ten years. We adopt this as a fair statement of what should be their decennial natural increase in all the States; and, by natural increase, we mean increase from births. The following tables explain themselves: —
SLAVE-EXPORTING STATES.
SLAVE-IMPORTING STATES.
The census of 1840, therefore, exhibits an annual unnatural decrease of over forty thousand of the slave-population in the exporting States. But this census, at least so far as statistics touching slaves and free colored persons are concerned, is notoriously and grossly incorrect. Either it or the tables prepared from it in the State Department have been dishonestly prepared, or very much garbled, apparently with the intent to prove that slavery was better calculated to secure the health of the negro race than a state of freedom. What figures will tell in favor of slavery? – not, what figures will tell the truth? – seems to have been the principle on which the last census was taken. Such being the case, we feel confident that the census makes the slaves in the exporting States decrease as little as possible. In 1830, Virginia had 469,757 slaves. In 1840 she ought to have had this number, and their natural increase for ten years, 135,532. Instead of this, all the natural increase is gone, and 20,770 besides! All will see that such a statement would tell too strongly against slavery to be admitted into a census got up under such slave-supporting auspices, unless the statement was really within the truth.
We believe, therefore, that the census of 1850, if truly taken, will exhibit a much larger annual unnatural decrease of the slave-population in the exporting States. This decrease, whatever it may really be, has not been owing to manumissions. It has not been caused by slaves running away. For the effects of both these causes, the surplus over 40,000 would be a liberal allowance. This unnatural decrease must, then, be caused by the slave-trade, and the migration of planters with their slaves. The fact is beyond all question, that every year forty thousand men, women, and children are torn from their homes and friends, and driven to the South and West. So truly did the Rev. Theodore Clapp speak (Sermon, p. 46), when he declared, "Slaves possess the inappreciable benefits which grow out of the endearing ties of friendship, kindred, sympathy, and the whole class of domestic affections. Parents and children, husbands and wives (it is true), are sometimes separated by being involved in those calamities which sweep away the possessions and prosperity of the master. But, take it all in all, they are as free and undisturbed in the enjoyment of their domestic relations, as the white inhabitants of the Northern States"! Forty thousand fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children are every year carried from the places of their birth, like so many cattle, although the terrible fact is well known that at least one fourth of them must die in the process of acclimation![S] So very tender is man of man, when he holds his brother in slavery, and makes merchandise of his sister! So eager is the soul-driver to coin his brother's blood into dollars! So ready are those whom "God has appointed masters" to sacrifice the lives of one fourth of those committed to their charge, in order greatly to advance the market value of the survivors!
We have no data from which to infer the number of planters who go South with their slaves. But, allowing that five hundred thus remove, and that on an average they have ten slaves each (proper estimates we believe), we have left thirty-five thousand as the number of human beings who are every year sold to the speculators in human flesh!
Now, Mr. Barnes's "lot" of his fellow-creatures averaged in value over five hundred dollars apiece; and those were times when, from his account, the market was glutted, and the prices accordingly low. "Young and likely" negroes are more easily acclimated, and are better able to work, than others. Consequently, they are the ones most sought after by judicious traders. We should consider five hundred dollars for a young, healthy negro, warranted sound, as really a low price. But, if we suppose the slaves annually exported to be worth less than any of Mr. Barnes's lot, – considering them as worth only $450 apiece, – we have, as the sums of money every year invested in the trade in slaves, the very moderate sum of fifteen millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars! This is exclusive of the cost of all the private jails, of transportation by sea and land, food, wages of drivers, &c.; which cannot but very largely increase this sum. This sum, $15,750,000, would, in less than three years, double the number of miles of railroad which were in operation in all the Southern States in 1846 (Parker's "Letter on Slavery," p. 52). It would, in only two years, more than double in length all the railroads which were then in operation in all the Slave States, except Maryland. It costs every year five millions more to carry on the domestic slave-trade than it does to fit out and victual all the whale-ships of the United States! ("American Almanac, 1843," p. 178.) Over one fifth of the entire value of the cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco raised in the fifteen Slave States in 1839, and over one third of the value of articles manufactured in the South, was invested in slaves! Nearly twice as many slaves are carried South and West every year as there are men in all the Slave States engaged in the learned professions! – so terribly prominent is this trade in men and women! Who will venture to conceive, much less express, the deep degradation which must be caused by a trade of such fearful character and magnitude; – degradation not only to the immediate sufferers, but to all those who may be subjected to it?
CHAPTER IX.
RUNAWAY SLAVES
"It is contrary also to the will of God for servants either to run away, or harbor a runaway" —Rev. C. C. Jones's Teaching to Slaves.
The treatment which runaway slaves receive cannot but greatly degrade them. Pious as well as worldly masters consider that their slaves have no more right to run away than their horses or mules. The Christian slaveholder orally teaches his slaves, that, by taking this step, they sin in the sight of God; for has not Paul most emphatically condemned the practice? So careful is he of the souls of those whom God has committed to his charge!
We frequently find advertisements similar to this, cut from the "American Beacon" (Norfolk, Va.), Jan. 24, 1848: —
"$50 Reward. – Stop Ruffin and Wyatt. – These men left my house on Saturday night, January 15, 1848, without any provocation. They have uniformly maintained a good character for honesty, industry, and sobriety, – were obedient and trustworthy servants, and no severity nor threats had been offered towards them; and I very much fear they have left for some Northern State.
· · · · · ·
"These slaves were originally owned in Surry, and possibly may be in the vicinity of their relatives.
George N. Hatch.
"Gaysville, P.O. Prince George County, Va."
Good Mr. Bryant Johnson is very much more indignant. In the "Macon (Georgia) Telegraph," May 28, is the following: —
"About the first of March last, the negro-man, Ransom, left me without the least provocation whatever. I will give a reward of $20 for said negro if taken, dead or alive; and, if killed in any attempt, an advance of $5 will be paid.
Bryant Johnson.
"Crawford County, Georgia."
In the extremity of his wrath, he cannot think of the least provocation whatever which he has given his slave. But we confess we are much more touched by friend Hatch's advertisement. Simple-minded creature! He evidently speaks more in sorrow and astonishment than in anger. Doubtless he had uniformly fed, clothed, and housed his servants well, and had never been severe with or threatened them. How could they desire to leave him? They have run away without any provocation! So unnatural, almost impossible, in the eyes of masters, is any spark of manliness in a slave! They cannot conceive it possible for a manly love of liberty to provoke a favored negro to run away. Still, however, even favored servants are continually escaping from their happy state; and, by the methods adopted to retake them, they are most efficiently taught that they have no more rights than has a favored hound or a valued horse. Their manliness is crushed, until at last they really feel themselves to be little else than items of profit or loss to their owners. The old slave who, at the point of death, was asked whether he was not sorry to die, and who replied, "Oh! no: the loss is massa's," had very faithfully improved the instruction imparted to his class.
If our horse is stolen from his stable, or our cow strays from her pasture, we advertise them as "strayed or stolen." If a slave runs away, his master advertises him, and offers a reward for his capture. If he is found, the lucky finder deposits him in jail for safe keeping, to await a favorable opportunity of sending him back to his master, – of course, like Onesimus, as a brother beloved. The jailer gets his legal fees, the finder gets his reward, the master gets his slave, and the slave most generally receives some "moderate correction" from the cowskin or the paddle. If he will not listen to the teaching of God's messengers to his soul, who are continually repeating to him (Jones's "Rel. Inst." 188) "a servant who knows his master's duty, and will not do it, must be made to do it," how can he complain of his treatment?
So anxious are they at the South that every poor African should have a good, kind master to attend to the wants of his soul, and support him in old age, that, if a stray negro is taken up running at large without an apparent owner, and for any cause he cannot legally prove his freedom, even though he does really own himself, he is nevertheless advertised, and sold at auction to the highest bidder, to pay the expenses occasioned by his own capture and detention. How happy must be the people that are in such a case! Yea, blessed is his condition whose body is fed and whipped, whose soul is saved and darkened, by his brother man!
The "Revised Statutes" of North Carolina, chap. 111, sec. 11, provides that, —
"If any negro who shall be taken up as a runaway, and brought before any justice of the peace, will not declare the name of his or her owner, such justice shall in such case, and he is hereby required, by a warrant under his hand, to commit the said negro-slave to the jail of the county wherein he or she shall be taken up; and the sheriff or undersheriff of the county into whose custody the said runaway shall be committed, shall forthwith cause notice in writing of such commitment to be set up on the Court-house door of the said county, and there continued during the space of two months; in which notice a full description of the said runaway and his clothing shall be particularly set down." – When the owner is supposed to be a resident in another State, the jailer is obliged by sec. 15, "by the first opportunity after such commitment, to send a description of such negro or runaway, together with the account of the time of commitment, and the county where such runaway is committed, to the press, to be advertised in the State Gazette." – Sec. 16 provides, that, "whenever any negro-slave shall be taken up in this State as a runaway, and confined in any jail for the space of twelve months, and the apprehension and confinement of said slave have been advertised in the State Gazette at least six months, and the owner does not apply to prove property in said time, then it shall be lawful for the court of pleas and quarter sessions of the county in which said runaway is confined, to command their sheriff to expose said negro-slave to public sale for ready money, giving three months' notice in some public newspaper in this State, at the Court-house door, and at two other public places in the said county, of the time and place of sale, and of the circumstances under which the said slave is to be sold." – Sect. 17 gives the sheriff "two and a half per centum on the amount of sale." – Sect. 18 declares that "the bill of sale of the sheriff shall vest in the purchaser an absolute right to the said slave." The residue of the amount of sales, after deducting commissions and prison charges, is directed to be paid to the county trustee for the use of the county.
Similar laws, authorizing the sale into slavery of negroes taken up as runaway slaves, who cannot from any cause prove their freedom, are found in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. A similar law has always existed in the District of Columbia, originally enacted, and since supported, by Northern freemen. Our law, however, differs from the others in offering to the marshal a high bribe to induce him to sell free negroes, by providing that the proceeds of the persons sold may remain in his own pocket, unless after the sale the master shall be discovered, and shall claim the balance.
Throughout all the Slave States, the law presumes every free negro to be a slave, until he can legally prove his freedom. Consequently, every free negro, out of his own neighborhood, is presumed to be, and treated as, a runaway slave, until he can establish his freedom. Under laws of this kind, many free negroes are taken; and, if from want of money or friends, or distance from home, or any other cause, they cannot prove their freedom, as no owner can come forward and "claim property and pay charges," they must necessarily be sold into slavery for life!
Very recently, in the columns of the "Washington Union," appeared the following notices: —
"Notice. – Was committed to the jail of Washington County, D.C. on the 5th July, 1846, as a runaway, a negro-man, who calls himself John Crew. He is black, about 5 feet 6½ inches high, and about 43 years of age. He says he is free, and was born in Hanover County, Virginia, and was set free by Mrs. Allen, formerly Mrs. Watson, of said county; and that he lived with Jude & Muir, in Richmond, Virginia; and that he obtained his free papers in Richmond in 1823, when a Mr. Henning was clerk of the court. He has had right leg broken, which has left a large scar on it. He has a scar on the right side of his neck, which he says he has received since he left Richmond.
"The owner or owners of the above-described negro-man are hereby required to come forward, prove him, and take him away, or he will be sold for his prison and other expenses, as the law directs.
Robt. Ball, Jailer forA. Hunter, Marshal.
"Aug. 15."
"Notice. – Was committed to the jail of Washington County, D.C. on the 23d of July, 1847, as a runaway, a negro-woman, who calls herself Ann E. Hodges. She is nearly black, about 5 feet 5¼ inches high, and about 22 years of age. Had on, when committed, a slate-colored Merino dress and a brown calico sun-bonnet. She says she is free, and served her time out with a Mr. Benjamin Daltry, of Southampton, Va.; and that Messrs. Griffin & Bishop, of the same place, know her to be free. She has two scars on the left leg, near the knee, from the bite of a dog, one on her left wrist, and one on the point of her breast-bone, occasioned by a burn.
"The owner or owners of the above-described negro-woman are hereby required to come forward, prove her, and take her away, or she will be sold for her prison and other expenses, as the law directs.
Robt. Ball, Jailer, forA. Hunter, Marshal.
"Aug. 23."
Here is another instance, which happened several years since: —
"Notice. – Was committed to the jail of Washington County, District of Columbia, as a runaway, a negro-woman, by the name of Polly Leiper, and her infant child, William… Says she was set free by John Campbell, of Richmond, Va. in 1818 or 1819. The owner of the above-described woman and child, if any, are requested to come and prove them, and take them away, or they will be sold for their jail fees and other expenses, as the law directs.
Tench Ringgold, Marshal.
"May 29, 1827."
Many other similar ones might be cited from papers published in the District. The following is taken from the "Mobile (Ala.) Register" of July 21, 1837: —
