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Brent, William.

[Manuscript certificate of status as a free woman for Hannah Reed.]

District of Columbia, 22 June 1836. 1 p. manuscript, signed, on single leaf of wove paper, 12.75” x 7.625”, with additional manuscript note on verso “Hannah Reed’s Certificate and Pass 22 June 1836.”

A manuscript pass and certificate issued by the clerk of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia to Hannah Reed, a free “mulatto woman” of Washington, D.C., describing some of her distinct physical features for purposes of identification.

Certificates of this sort, both manuscript and partially printed, had long been required of free persons to prove their status, and one of the purposes of the highly detailed description found in the present example was to prevent its use by an enslaved person to aid his or her escape.

The document reads in full:

District of Columbia Set.

I, William Brent, Clerk of the Circuit Court, of the District of Columbia, for the County of Washington, hereby certify that the bearer hereof Hannah Reed, a bright Mulatto woman, about twenty four years of age, about five feet three and a half inches high, apparently straight and well made, having a small mole on the upper lid of her right eye, several fine freckles or moles about her face, a mole on the back of her right hand, a mole on the thick part of her left hand, a mole on her right wrist (lower part), full eyes, good face and countenance, is a Free Woman; as appears by a Deed of Manumission from Isaac Reed, dated sixteenth day of May last and recorded in my Office.

In Testimony Whereof, I have hereto subscribe[d] my name and affix the seal of the said Circuit Court at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of June A.D. 1836.

Wm. Brent, Clk.

Frederick Douglass famously acquired a freeman’s form from a retired Black seaman and presented it to a train conductor during his escape from slavery, as noted in his Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, in which he provides an excellent account of the use, both authorized and unauthorized, of these and related forms:

It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require of the free colored people to have what were called free papers. This instrument they were required to renew very often, and by charging a fee for this writing, considerable sums from time to time were collected by the State. In these papers the name, age, color, height and form of the free man were described, together with any scars or other marks upon his person which could assist in his identification. This device of slaveholding ingenuity, like other devices of wickedness, in some measure defeated itself—since more than one man could be found to answer the same general description. Hence many slaves could escape by impersonating the owner of one set of papers; and this was often done as follows: A slave nearly or sufficiently answering the description set forth in the papers, would borrow or hire them till he could by their means escape to a free state, and then, by mail or otherwise, return them to the owner. The operation was a hazardous one for the lender as well as for the borrower. A failure on the part of the fugitive to send back the papers would imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the papers in possession of the wrong man would imperil both the fugitive and his friend. It was therefore an act of supreme trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to put in jeopardy his own liberty that another might be free. It was, however, not infrequently bravely done, and was seldom discovered. I was not so fortunate as to sufficiently resemble any of my free acquaintances as to answer the description of their papers. But I had one friend—a sailor—who owned a sailor's protection, which answered somewhat the purpose of free papers—describing his person and certifying to the fact that he was a free American sailor. The instrument had at its head the American eagle, which at once gave it the appearance of an authorized document. This protection did not, when in my hands, describe its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it called for a man much darker than myself, and close examination of it would have caused my arrest at the start. 

Unlike Douglass’s seaman’s paper, Hannah Reed’s certificate would have been all but impossible for anyone else to use, given the exacting description of her moles, the details of which would have required close and demeaning examination of her person.

A vivid example of a free person’s certificate, issued to a young woman in the nation’s capital.

Item #10358

On Hold

Price: $1,800.00

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