EXTENSIVE SLAVERY-ERA ARCHIVE (1853–1865) RELATED TO A METHODIST MINISTER AND SLAVEHOLDER IN GEORGIA

Archive of 60 receipts issued to the Reverend Arminius Wright (1829-1879), a Methodist minister. Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia, 1853-1865. pages, 13 3/4 x 8 1/4 inches (largest). Primarily slavery-related, including bills of sale acknowledging the receipt of payment from Wright for the purchase of enslaved men, women, and children, together with various tax receipts, clothing receipts, receipts for medical and legal services rendered and various other manuscript and partly printed documents. With 5 original envelopes and one impressed leatherette receipt book.

Arminius Wright was granted a license to preach in 1845 and, working as an itinerant minister, traveling to churches throughout the North and South Georgia Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Later, he primarily served St. Paul's Methodist Church in his hometown of Columbus, Georgia. Wright married twice and was the father of nine children.

During the 1850s and 1860s, Wright apparently served as an agent for the estate of Dr. Samuel Boykin (c. 1786–1848), a prominent physician and planter who enslaved over 100 people across plantations in Muscogee County, Georgia, Baldwin County, Georgia, and Russell County, Alabama. Several receipts offered here document payment from "Armenius Wright, Agt of the Executors of Samuel Boykin, Decd." for the "'Wright Portion' of Negroes" for each given year. Occasionally, other estates are mentioned, suggesting that Wright regularly acted as estate agent for members of his congregation.

Bills of sale within this archive show that Wright directly transacted in the buying and selling of at least eight enslaved individuals, including a mother and child between 1852 and 1865. For himself, Wright purchased first "a negro man slave named Ned about fifty-five years of age" in 1852, followed by a "Negroe woman by name Lucinda and child by name Elizabeth" in 1857. A receipt for medical services rendered by a Dr. Williams notes that Wright paid $50 on October 14, 1859 for "medicine [for a] Negro girl," possibly Elizabeth, although this cannot be confirmed.

Three other documents record buyers' intent to pay Wright for the purchase of enslaved women "Nancy," "Lizzy," "Harriet," and "Lucinda & Flora." For the three wartime transactions, language is specifically added for the protection of transactional interests: "Should the Enemy invade or threaten this section of the state, then said Wright shall be justified in taking away said Negro," and one includes the additional proviso that "further, the heir is not to recover said Negro out of Muscogee Co Ga without the consent of said Wright."

[African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]