Among the Virginia
archives vouchers are filed for sixteen such enslavements, in widely
scattered localities.[71] Most of the appraisals in these cases ranged from
$300 to $1200, indicating substantial earning capacity; but the valuations
of $5 for one of the women and of $10 for a man upwards of seventy years
old suggest that some of these undertakings were of a charitable nature.
An instance in the general premises occurred in Georgia, as late as July,
1864, when a negro freeman in dearth of livelihood sold himself for five
hundred dollars, in Confederate currency of course, to be paid to his free
wife.[72] Occasionally a free man of color would seek a swifter and surer
escape from his tribulations by taking his own life;[73] but there appears
to be no reason to believe that suicides among them were in greater ratio
than among the whites.
[Footnote 68: _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 161, 162.]
[Footnote 69: _Ibid_., II, 163, 164.]
[Footnote 70: In the absence of permissive laws the self-enslavement of
negroes was invalid. Texas Supreme Court _Reports_, XXIV, 560. And a negro
who had deeded his services for ninety-nine years was adjudged to retain
his free status, though the contract between him and his employer was not
thereby voided.
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