Slaveryto
freedom
Harrisburg on the eve of Civil War
Study Areas
Hope H. Slatter Buys a Mortally Ill Woman
Sues in Court for Damages
The high demand for enslaved labor to supply the vast cotton and sugar cane plantations of the lower South put pressure on the slave traders of the upper South to remain well stocked with human chattel ready for shipment. Slave traders such as Hope Hull Slatter in Baltimore advertised in local newspapers that he was always ready to purchase enslaved people by the hundreds. Slatter carefully cultivated a public image of a humane businessman, perhaps as a means of assuaging the conscience of Maryland and Virginia slaveholders who knew that any enslaved people they sold to him would be promptly sold south to a harsh life and often brutal fate. Slatter's description of his new slave prison on Pratt Street in Baltimore read almost like an advetisement for a hotel:
The building having been erected under his own inspection, without regard to price; planned and arranged upon the most approved principle, with an eye to comfort and convenience, not surpassed by any establishment of the kind in the United States, is now ready to receive SLAVES. The male and female apartments are completely separate -- the rooms for both are large, light and airy, and all above ground, with a fine large yard for exercise, with pure delightful water within doors.
The reality for those persons purchased by Slatter was considerably less than delightful. Tight, cramped quarters, poor food, insufficient sanitation and non-existant medical care. Despite the reality, Slatter's persistent advertising and very visible public presence drew local people eager to sell enslaved man, women and children to him. Not all sellers were honest. Some offered people to whom they had no legal title--enslaved people lured away from other slaveholders and free people tricked or forcibly kidnapped. In the following story, the seller's enslaved woman was mortally ill, but instead of seeking medical care for her or even providing some comfort for her imminent death, the man sought to dispose of her by selling her to Slatter.
A Court Case
[Reported for the Sun.]
BALTIMORE COUNTY COURT -- FEB. 5.
Present Judges Magruder and Purviance.
Hope H. Slatter vs. J. W. Owens. This case, which has occupied the attention of the court for several days, was still further argued to-day by G. R. Richardson, Esq. for the defence, and J. S. Tyson, Esq. for the plaintiff, and submitted to the jury. The evidence in the case went to show that the defendant had sold to the plaintiff a slave woman, which he (the defendant) represented, at the time of the sale, to be in a sound, healthy condition. The slave was left at the plaintiff's house late in the afternoon of one day, and the defendant called and consummated the sale early on the morning of the following day. Prior, however, to the consummation of the sale, the plaintiff casually observed the slave in question as she walked across the yard, and remarked to the defendant, that she looked feeble and unwell, and as he (plaintiff) was paying a sound price for her, (the price being four hundred and seventy-five dollars) he must have a sound slave; defendant replied "she is sound; I know her to be sound; she is a little weak and feeble now, consequent upon a confinement in child-bed, but there's nothing else the matter with her." The woman, according to the evidence, so far from being sound and healthy at the time she was sold and delivered to the plaintiff, was tottering upon the very verge of the grave, with consumption, in its worst form, preying upon her vitals, and actually died some 13 or 14 days after she became the property of the plaintiff. The damages in this case, are laid at $1,000. The jury had not returned their verdict when the court adjourned. For the plaintiff, J. S. Tyson, J. R. Nelson, and J. M. Buchanan. For the defence, G. R. Richardson and C. H. Pitts. (Baltimore Sun, 6 February 1840)
[Reported for the Sun.]
BALTIMORE COUNTY COURT -- FEB 6.
Present, Judges Magruder and Purviance.
The jury in the case of Slatter vs. Owens, came into court this morning with a verdict in favor of the plaintiff for $550 damages. (Baltimore Sun, 7 February 1840)
Notes
As seen in the court case above, Hope Hull Slatter's projected image of caring concern for his purchased enslaved people was nowhere in evidence. The woman suffering from an advance case of tuberculosis spent the final two weeks of her life in a slave prison in winter. The court case ignored any issues of neglect and focused only on whether the property that changed hands was "sound."
The Year of Jubilee
Vol. 1: Men of God and Vol. 2: Men of Muscle
by George F. Nagle
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