William K. White, guardian of eleven-year-old J. H. W. Breaker, seeks permission to sell three slaves named Ned, Jerry, and Fanny. His ward inherited the slaves from his late grandfather, Jacob Breaker, in 1839. White claims that "it will be most to the advantage of the minor to sell the said negroes and invest the proceeds in securities yielding an interest of seven per cent." C. M. Breaker, who proposes to purchase the slaves for $2500, is now in possession of "all the negroes which belonged" to Breaker's estate. White contends that the minor's slaves, "being part of the same gang" as the others, "are so unwilling to be seperated from their old associates connections & relations that your petitioner deems it very doubtful whether he can keep them in the part of the country where he resides, and if by a system of severity he succeeded in doing so, still that it would impair their value and diminish the profits to be derived from their labor." Noting that thirty-year-old Fanny "has been pregnant once or twice," he also points out that "there is very little probability of there being any increase" from the slaves as "she has never brought forth living offspring."
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
