Beschreibung:

(African American, 1849) Letter by Southern slave trader and jailer, touting the going prices for slaves based on age and sex Author: Lumpkin, Robert Place Published: Richmond, Virginia Date Published: Jan. 18, 1849 Description: Autograph Letter Signed. 1 pg.+stampless address leaf. To A. H. Boyd, Lenox Castle, Rockingham County, North Carolina. "Likely men 18 to 25, 550 to 600; likely girls 14 to 18, 450 to 500; boys 10 to 15, 300 to 400; girls 10 to 14, 275 to 400. All others in proportion. Very fine offering and good many buyers…” Letters by Lumpkin are scarce with only one institutional holding - at the University of Alabama. In 1844, 40 year-old Robert Lumpkin purchased a large property in downtown Richmond, from which he not only carried on his trade as the city’s largest slave trader but also maintained the largest slave jail in Richmond. It became known as “the Devil’s half acre” where its owner tortured, flogged, whipped and raped thousands of enslaved captives - men, women and children crammed into small cells and chained to the floor, some dying of disease or starvation. Lumpkin died soon after the end of the Civil War, leaving behind an emancipated mulatto mistress and the five children he had fathered with her. Condition: Bottom half of letter page removed, not affecting text; moderate wear and soiling to address leaf; good. Item#: 347147 Headline: Slaves priced by infamous slave trader