James Poyas, executor of the will of the late Henry Smith Poyas, asks the court to confirm the sale of "Forty negro slaves" to Gilbert C. Geddes. Poyas informs the court that the estate contains "no landed property ... on which to employ" the slaves. He currently hires out the "whole gang of negroes" for $600 per year, but their annual income is "insufficient for the support" of Poyas's family. Furthermore, he claims that "the said negroes were not as contented nor fared as well as if under the eye and care of their owners." Poyas contends that the current "market price" of slaves would "nearly double" the family's income. Noting that Geddes has offered to pay $15,200 for the entire "gang, the petitioner purports that "this sum at Interest would produce an annual income of $1064 without the danger of loss by death, whereas the annual hire or wages heretofore obtained was only $600, subject to the contingency of diminution by the casualties of disease, accidental injury, infirmity or death." The testator's three eldest children assent to the sale and desire their portions of the estate be "partitioned off and allotted to them" under their father's will.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina
