American Historical Ephemera & Photography

1 1/4 pages, 7 7/8 x 9 7/8 in., some small separations along folds, light chipping to edges. Undersigned. Docketed to verso.  
A northern manuscript bill of sale for "one negro black or mullatto girl named Violet aged about sixteen years old." The enslaved individual was sold by Henry Seward of the town of Goshen in Orange County, New York, to Eliphalet Copp of Chester Township in Morris County, New Jersey, for forty dollars. Witnessed by Nathan A. Cooper, likely General Nathan A. Cooper (1802-1879). Due to New Jersey's gradual emancipation law passed in 1804, Seward writes, "...she is a slave till she is twenty one years of age which will be on the Eighteenth day of January Eighteen hundred & thirty three..." 

New Jersey was the last northern state to pass a law beginning the process of gradual emancipation of enslaved persons within its borders. The act passed on 15 February 1804 stated that children of enslaved persons born after 4 July 1804 would be freed when they reached a certain age - 21 for women and 25 for males.