Millions of documents on slavery abound in the archives, libraries, and museums all over the United States. This is not surprising. For about 250 years, the enslaved Africans, as legal property, bore the brunt of the economy that created wealth for the colonial societies and the young nation.
UNC Charlotte’s J. Murrey Atkins Library holds some of the original documents associated with the history of slavery right here in Mecklenburg County. You are about to encounter some of these documents, spanning 1776 to 1865. As bills of sale, diaries, and contracts, they are snapshots of history that give us intimate views of what a slave society looked like.
Of the 12-15 million Africans brought to the Americas between 1619 and 1867, less than seven percent arrived in British North America (US). The majority arrived in Brazil, Haiti, the Caribbean, and Spanish America. Hence, whereas the slave population in the US increased by natural birth, that of the Caribbean and South America increased by continuous shipments from Africa. The result: far more Africa-descended population was born into slavery in the US than were brought from Africa. Internal slave trade was therefore a lucrative economic practice.
In chattel slavery, a slave was a property that can be sold, bought, given away as gift and inheritance, and used as collateral for loan without any regard for the family of the enslaved. The consequence was that family separation was a common occurrence in chattel slavery. Jude was only nine years old when she was sold for one hundred pounds as the American War of Independence raged on in 1776. And Rose, a young woman, had a similar fate in 1784. Levi was four years old when Mr. Ezekiel Alexander used him in 1838 to settle the debt of two hundred and twenty-five dollars he owed Mr. William Patterson. Young able-bodied men fetched higher prices, with the average prices for such individual jumping from about $500 in 1800 to $1,200 in 1860 in the Carolinas.
The labor contract that William Patterson signed with his former slaves in late 1865 reveals the tension and difficulties that both the ex-slave and the “former” master faced as a result of the end of slavery.
Both the contract and the ledger, shown here, must be one of the earliest documents illustrating the negotiation of new socioeconomic relationships that centered on wages rather than chattel slavery following the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), and the end of the Civil War (1865).
In the turmoil of the Civil War, a significant number of slaves ran away in search of liberty. And when the news of emancipation became widely known after the Confederates surrendered, many African-Americans simply moved away from their master to start a new though uncertain life. For those who remained behind, like Cinda, Aaron, Jean, and Neal, they agreed to work for their former master as wage laborers. Yet, many often broke this arrangement as they moved on in search of better opportunities.
Mr. Patterson’s ledger is revealing of the challenges that the newly freed Blacks faced. Many worked for their former masters but their wages were rarely enough to cover the costs of their necessities: food, clothing, and housing. The credits that the “former” masters advanced their workers often exceeded the wages paid. The old and the families (especially the women) with two or more young children suffered the most. They seem to be in debt almost perpetually to their employers. Through credit and work relationships, the foundation of economic dependency was laid.
Akin Ogundiran, Ph.D.
Chair, Africana Studies Department, UNC Charlotte