Converse, Sherman [Autograph Letter Signed, Tuckahoe, North Carolina, December 12, 1839 to William Flanders, Woburn, Massachusetts] folio, three pages, inscribed on four page bi-folium, few splits along folds, remains of sealing wax on integral address leaf, else in very good, clean condition. Converse, a young Massachusetts native has come to North Carolina to teach school, he writes home to a friend in this letter describing plantation life and conditions and his impressions of slavery. "… I board with Mr. Cox… he has about 23 hundred acres of land, 9 children, (two married) 30 negroes, 6 horses, 3 mules, 9 cows, 2 yoke oxen, a hundred hogs, 1 tame deer, a flock of sheep, 5 dogs, a large flock each of geese, ducks, turkeys and the rest in guinna hens… A negro woman does the cooking in a house close by and brings it in. I have thought I would relish my food as well if prepaired by the clean white hands of a northern girl as by a greesy looking negro, but as I have not been poisoned yet I shall say no more about it. We have had till lately a negro girl to keep the flies off from the table while we were eating with a bunch of peacock's tail feathers. I have a negro to black my boots, and when I wish to ride on horseback I am supplied with one free of expense, he is brought to the door by a negro, and when I return a negro takes him…The negro children from 1 year to fifteen old are about as naked as Adam, being barefoot and barelegged and perhaps more; they wear a frock which when first made comes a little below the knees…Mr. Cox's nephew… has lately come from Alabama near Mississippi; he says a man near him has raised this year 5000 bags of cotton, common price pr bag 40 dollars. Do your own multiplying… The white women never cook nor wash nor iron cloaths…A boy 18 or 20 years of age comes to my school whose uncle died and left him 3000 acres of land, 30 negroes, 8 or 10 horses, between 1 and 2 hundred swine, and he has raised 2500 bushels corn this year, he lives on his plantation alone, except his negroes around him to cook and carry on his plantation…" Price: USD 650.00 other currencies   order no. 16692    inquire

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