Visions of America: The Stephen White Collection

4pp, 7 1/2 x 12 in. Undersigned by multiple parties. Docketed "Appraisement Property of Jno. S. Thompson dsd" and "Filed Oct. 29/60 J.A. Young" on separate accompanying bifolium. Housed in custom collector's case featuring gilt title "Estate of John S. Thompson / List of Slaves / Livestock / Land / Etc."

Inventory lists by name 37 enslaved men, women, and children, ranging in ages from two weeks to 62, alongside their valuations. In addition to land, livestock, and household goods, the appraisal identifies $39,500 in "Negro Property," the equivalent of nearly $1.5 million dollars today. Among those identified are men "Jim," "Wash," "Giles," "Joseph," and "Isaac"; women "May," "Betty" (listed as "not sound"), and "Abiga" and her two-week old child "Ellen"; and children "Susan," "Eliza," "Sidney," "Henry," "Anthony," "Sally," and "Rachael."

A native of Charleston, South Carolina, John Simpson Thompson (1804-1860) had removed to Marengo County, Alabama, by the time of his 1838 marriage to Nancy Lane Bryan (1820-1900), perhaps as part of a wave of white settlement in Alabama following the removal of Native American tribes. These new white settlers brought with them the plantation system and slave labor. Census data indicates that Thompson increasingly accumulated wealth in the form of enslaved persons. The 1840 U.S. Federal Census records John S. Thompson as enslaving 9 persons, with that number growing to 24 persons in 1850 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule, and 36 enslaved persons in 1860. Recorded just prior to Thompson's death on 7 June 1860, the 1860 census data appears to closely coincide with the appraisal. Both the appraisal and the 1860 census list 18 males and 18 females. The additional enslaved person on the appraisal is likely Abiga's newborn child Ellen.