Slavery, legally sanctioned in the south, and for a long time in the north as well, was supported at every turn by legal structures. So, something that I like to use a lot in teaching, just to get students thinking about this, are—these are receipts, these are receipts. And, the one I'm holding right now is dated Norfolk, September 17, 1853. It's a printed receipt that's been filled out. It's something that, it's very similar in a way, to something that you might buy at an office supply store. If you went and needed a book of receipts because, you know, you had a business.

It's got a blank space that you can fill in the place and date. And then it says 18-five and blank.

So just like today in writing a check you might have—or a set of receipts—just to make things easier they might write two-zero-zero and then you can put in 2009, or 2008, or something like that. Just to make it just a little easier in filling out a receipt. It's got this, it's for—it's obviously a book of receipts that you can fill out all through the 1850s. Then it says, "Received of 'blank,' 'blank' dollars, being in full for the purchase of 'blank' Negro slave named 'blank.' The right and title of said slave 'blank' warrant and defend against the claims of all persons whatsoever, and likewise warrant 'blank' sound and healthy, as witness my hand and seal," and then the title of this. And it's a very elegant 19th-century receipt. It's in a nice filigreed kind of handwriting, it's got lovely illustrations on the side that depict kind of the engines of commerce for the time. There's a steamboat and there's a clipper ship and there's a railroad.

And it says, "Murphy and Company, Printers, Baltimore." Thinking about it, how many people are involved in this receipt? It's been printed by a printer in Baltimore, but it's been printed for probably a lot of people. But, this one in particular, it's noted it's sold by a bookseller in Richmond. This particular receipt is dated in Norfolk.

Now, if you were teaching students, using this for the classroom, one of the first things you might want to do is list all of the locations that are on this receipt and any of the other receipts, you know, so that students get a sense of the geography of the place. Like, where is Baltimore in relationship to Richmond? Where is Norfolk and why might this receipt be dated in Norfolk?

The thing, as an historian, that strikes me about these documents is, first, how mundane they are, how banal they are, how similar they are to the kinds of—the book of receipts that you could pick up today. But then, to realize that the people that are kind of in this kind of elegant handwriting, that are signing their names to this receipt, are engaged in the sale of humans.

This particular receipt from Baltimore, dated in 1851, "warrants and defends against the claims of all persons whatsoever and likewise warrants sound and healthy and slaves for life." So, it's almost identical, but it adds the little phrase "and slaves for life," that none of the others do. So, you ask yourself, "Well, what might account for that little bit of fine print, that little legal boilerplate being added to this receipt?"

People keep records of property in a way that they don't keep of people, and they lay—these records stay around with us for a long time.

You often will hear that, well, the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free any slaves really, because it only was under effect for those areas that weren't under the control of the Union Army. But what it did do, was take this huge amount of capital that was vested in slaves and wiped it out. It just erased billions of dollars of capital. It's one of the reasons that New York City was such a hotbed of pro-slavery sentiment, because the banks and the trading houses in New York City were very invested economically.

We know that, in this particular one, "Received of Charles H. Shield, Esquire, 1,000 dollars, being paid in full for the purchase of a Negro slave named Mary and her child, Louisianna. The right and title of said slave, I warrant and defend against the claims of all persons whatsoever," and it's signed by William W. Hall. So, Charles Shield and William Hall are engaged in the transaction of Mary and her child. But this is a legal document. Think about what is the backing? What is the legal claim that this receipt gives to the bearer? So that there's a certain#&8212;in other words, it's kind of to demonstrate that I have the legal right that I've been given by the seller, to the ownership of Mary and her child. The other thing, of course, you keep receipts for, is in case you have to return something.

It's very similar when you think about it, to the kinds of promises that you make when you're buying anything. Here—there's a warrant. In other words, someone is making a kind of authoritative claim and "defend against all claims of all persons whatsoever." So, by that, in other words that, "I have legal title to these people, and I warrant, I signed this in warrant that in fact, I'm transferring that title to the bearer, and I likewise warrant them sound and healthy, as witnessed by hand and seal." So, they're making a claim about these people, and it's not surprising that they make a claim about this. As I said, the law is imbued in every aspect of slavery, including all of these kinds of transfers, these kind of transfers, the sale of slaves. And there's a whole kind of, a set of legal laws about, "Well, what would happen if you sold a slave to someone, and the slave died? What if the person knew that they were ill? So, what does it mean to say that someone is healthy?" and what, what are the kinds of—these things come up. The courts serve the function of making sure that the business of slavery proceeds in an orderly fashion.

This is all about the buying and selling of people. But, there's this huge set of laws that are protecting every transaction. So, a lot of this printed language is what a lot of people, they'll refer to it as "boilerplate." This is the fine print, the fine print of the sale of slaves, that has a special meaning for every jurisdiction that this receipt is made out in.

The state, whether it's Virginia here or elsewhere, does have an interest in knowing about this, in part, just to keep track, but also because these transactions are often—they'll say "paid in full," but they're really also backed by loans. People are buying slaves on credit. It's very speculative. So, there are banks, insurance companies, who also have a stake in the ownership of Mary and her child, Louisiana, that may go far beyond Norfolk and the environs.

Now, one thing that this document won't tell you is, in and of itself, and I can't say that I know the answers to this myself, but who William Hall and Charles Shield are, but you can kind of make some educated guesses. This is happening, the sale is recorded in Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk is, it's on the coast. It's 1853. Virginia is an old part of the kind of slave south of the Chesapeake [region]. There are hundreds of thousands of enslaved people in Virginia. But, the real money in 1853 to be made in slavery, is not in Virginia. It's in the new southwest. It's in places like Louisiana and Alabama, Mississippi.

A lot of legal cases developed over this because people wanted to make sure they were getting maximized profits for the sale of the estate, including slaves. It was found that "items sell best when sold separately." In other words, given the opportunity to sell a family, self-contained as a lot, to an individual, or to sell them as individuals, more money would be made selling them as individuals.

And, because the courts have a fiduciary responsibility in making sure that the heirs get the best bargain that they can from the estate, they're mandated to sell separately. So, it reminds one that there are hundreds of thousands of families that are being broken up through these types of trade. It's also a good thing to stop and think about how often we talk about the transatlantic slave trade, but to consider the domestic slave trade as well, as being a great tragedy and something that continued to wreak havoc for years and years. Some of the saddest documents that one can find are in African American newspapers and magazines, sometimes 10, 20 years after the Civil War. They're often called "Information Wanted" notices, looking for a mother or a sister or a child, still trying to find their family members.

The source comes from the Cherokee Nation's Supreme Court Records. In 1833, a lady named Molly Hightower claimed that a woman named Chickaua, who is the primary person mentioned in the document, that Chickaua and her sons belonged to Molly Hightower. And this claim was based on a transaction between another man named Sam Dent, to Molly Hightower's father. Sam Dent had been married to a Cherokee wife some time prior to the Revolutionary War, and he actually beat and killed his Cherokee wife. According to the Cherokee Law of Blood, the Deer clan sought revenge on Sam Dent for the death of their family member, because his wife had been a Deer clan member. And instead of subjecting himself to Deer clan punishment, he purchased a slave named Molly, who then became Chickaua, our main character in this document, to replace his dead wife. So, he gifted the Deer clan with the slave that he had purchased as a way of meeting his obligation for killing his wife.

The Deer clan adopted the slave named Molly, gave her the name Chickaua and, as the document says, she has by herself and descendants, been ever since recognized by said Nation, the Cherokee Nation or clan, the Deer clan, as a Cherokee. That's what allowed her sons to then also be members of the Deer clan and full-fledged members of the Cherokee Nation.

So, then later on, in 1833, Molly Hightower comes into the picture and says that Sam Dent sold Chickaua to her father, and that she actually owns Chickaua and Chickaua's descendants, Chickaua's sons. As the document says, "Her father was also an Indian trader who lived many years near the descendants of Chickaua and who never advanced or set up any claim to Chickaua and her son, Cunestuta," who is also called Isaac Tucker in the document. And this document is interesting, because it has a number of different names. You have English names, you have Cherokee names, you have a variety of different identities that are represented in the one document, in addition to this interesting transaction over slave property.

The Deer clan objected to Molly Hightower's claim, and decided to petition the Cherokee Supreme Court to prevent the return of Chickaua and her son, Cunestuta, to slavery. The Deer clan petitions them to, "Resist this oppression and illegal wrong attempted to be practiced on our brother and sister by the Hightower, Molly Hightower, in carrying into slavery two of whom have ever been and considered Native Cherokee." So, what that particular statement represents is an affirmation by the Deer clan that Molly is their kin, that Chickaua, Molly-slash-Chickaua, is their kin and belongs to them. It's really an affirmation of the adoption process and how seriously the Cherokees took their Law of Blood to bring in someone who had been an outsider to their community, and adopting them, making them full-fledged family members and not wanting them to return to the condition of slavery.

Ultimately, the document indicates that the Supreme Court sided with the Deer clan, saying that since Chickaua's adoption she has, quote, "continued in the Nation and enjoyed the liberty of freedom and that her two sons, Edward and Isaac Tucker, were born at the beloved town called Echota on the Tennessee River"—that was one of the main towns of the Cherokee Nation, what they call their beloved town—"and has ever been free and resided in the Nation."

Well, it's a very rich document on a number of levels. The primary thing that strikes me about it is the confusion over names. When you read it the first time, you're not sure who's who and who's talking about who. There's two Mollys. There's sort of what I think of as the first Molly, who was bought by Sam Dent, the trader, and then given to the Cherokee Deer clan. Her name then becomes Chickaua, and that's how she's referred to throughout the rest of the document. The next Molly is Molly Hightower, she who claims that her father actually owns Chickaua and Chickaua's descendants.

But there's—the fact that Chickaua obtains her name after her adoption into the Cherokee Nation, also means that her personal name is a marker of affiliation with a state, with a nation and a state, the Cherokee state. So, it's a great example of how names can mean many different layers of identity.

Another thing that we see in the document is how racial identity is shifting. We think of slaves as being of African descent, and we don't know, of course, that Molly, who became Chickaua, was not of African descent. In fact, we presume that she was. So, her identity shifts from being a black slave to an Indian free person, although obviously she herself does not change. It reminds us of how racial identity is constructed, how it has a history by itself that's worth examination.

Clan membership in Cherokee society, in many southeastern Native societies, was matrilineal, so you were only affiliated with the group through your mother's line. It's that matrilineal line that affirms everything about Cherokee identity and also Cherokee law.

This Law of Blood was based on the idea that clan members could avenge the deaths or other incidents happening to their kin, and women often made the decisions about how those deaths were to be avenged. And it was a way of making sure that people in Cherokee society lived in harmony with one another, because it was very clear what the consequences would be if you committed such a violent act.

Just because Chickaua escaped re-enslavement here doesn't mean that she was forever secure, because 1833 was a very critical time in the history of Indians in the southeast and well, indeed the whole nation. What we now know of as the old South, the sort of cotton culture of the antebellum South, would not have been possible without Indian removal, and the race relations, the intensity of black/white relations that developed prior to the Civil War, would have been very different had Indians remained in the southeast. This case is coming at a critical time, not just for the Cherokee Nation, but for questions of racial formation in the United States.

You don't understand very much about Cherokee removal from this particular source, but when you look at the date that Molly Hightower makes this claim in 1833 (October 18, 1833, is when the Supreme Court ruled on it), that date by itself triggers for the historian, a whole set of associations around the tensions of Cherokee removal, and the kinds of decisions that Congress was making, that President Andrew Jackson was making, that the Cherokee principal Chief John Ross, and the Cherokee General Council were making, around these issues of removal.

Because it is a fairly complex document, I introduced it to the students simply by asking them to identify the different names and to do a little genealogy of who the players are and how they're related to one another. So, on the one side they have Molly Hightower, they have Molly Hightower's father. On the other side, they have Sam Dent. They have his Cherokee wife. They have his purchase of Molly, the slave. Molly the slave then becomes a Cherokee.

The idea of tribes and nations that we operate with today when we talk about Native Americans, didn't always exist in its current form. What we see in this document is a world in which family, clan membership, kinship affiliation, was kind of the dominant logic of the society, and to understand that dominant logic you have to understand the names, and you have to understand the relationships. So, it's sort of a window into not only the time period, but also a method of doing history that speaks to the power of history itself, how it helps us understand another society that's different from our own.

I think students, they ask, they assume that because Sam Dent was a white man that he would have felt no responsibility to the Deer clan, that he would have felt no sense of loyalty or allegiance to the Cherokee Nation. But, I think what they need to understand is that the reality at this time was very different. Sam Dent made his living off of trading with Cherokee people, and under—most English traders understood that in order to trade with an Indian Nation, you had to have a kinship affiliation with that Nation. So, that's probably why Sam Dent married a Cherokee, was that his marriage to that woman enabled him, in fact, to make a living.

And one of the things that we feel we understand about American society is that whether right or wrong, European Americans have held the balance of power firmly in their hands over time, and this document is an example of a time period in which European Americans were not holding the balance of power. In fact, Cherokees at this time and place, certainly the time and place in which Sam Dent made these decisions, were holding the balance of power. This document reminds us how the Cherokee Supreme Court was alive and well. It was doing its job and acting on behalf of the Cherokee Nation, without regard to the United States and to the property laws of the United States that might have legitimized Sam Dent's sale to Molly Hightower's father.