Bill of sale for an enslaved woman named Nancy

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A bill of sale for an enslaved woman named Nancy written at Witmarsh Plantation in the Colleton District of South Carolina by Mary Witsell in February 1844. It is a single page document handwritten in brown ink on linked paper. The price for Nancy is given as $125.63. Spaces remain blank where the buyer's name is to appear, where his or her legal representatives are meant to sign, and where the specific date in February should appear. The document reads in part: [bargain sell and deliver to the said (blank space) the / Negroe Slave named Nancy____ / To have and to hold the said Negroe Slave and / her future increase unto the said (blank space)]. At bottom right, in black ink, is Mary Witsell's signature and handwritten seal. At bottom left, in black ink, is the signature of two witnesses: [Eliza Witsell / Emanuel Witsell].

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