“I WOULD RATHER HE NOT KNOW
THAT I INTEND SELLING HIM”

This letter by slaveowner and future North Carolina legislator Thomas David Smith McDowell (1823–1898) charges its recipients to sell “my man Harry” as soon as Harry arrives, via raft, in Wilmington:If you can get five hundred dollars, you can take it, nothing less than that sum, and as much more.....