| This is a public
advertisement. The property of a deceased gentleman is being offered
for sale, including his "Negroes." Slaves were treated as
property, plain and simple. Interestingly, many slaves learned
building trades on the plantation, so that the owner could hire them out
for profit. |
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| Slavery ultimately rested upon
coercion. This is a pass that allowed a slave to go and return from
his wife's house. Slaves were carefully controlled in all aspects of
life, including moving through the countryside. |
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| Slaves were a huge
investment. This is a bill of sale written in 1854. James
Hargrove has sold a "lively mulatto woman" for $925. That
was the price of a house in the mid-nineteenth century. He has sold
of the daughters for $650 and a son for $460. |
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| Another Bill of Sale. The
year is 1847. John, a "boy" of no more than 30
years of age, has been sold for $840. |
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| D. A. Tompkins, probably the
most important figure in Mecklenburg County in the second half of the
nineteenth century, was a Social Darwinist. He classified "Negores"
according to the tribes and areas from which they originated. Tompkins
placed "Arab Africans" at the top of the list. |
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| It is most troubling to see a
graphic example of the attitudes and habits of thought that characterized
such important leaders as Daniel Tompkins. Tompkins came to
Charlotte in 1883 and led the New South movement in the Piedmont section
of the two Carolinas. He was an ardent White Supremacist and admired the
Ku Klux Klan. |
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