Contract for labor from Freedman Henry Dred, wife Sylvester, and child Alfred

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A handwritten contract between Freedman Dred and Mary Josephine Rivers. The document stipulates that Dred and his child Alfred are to work for ten dollars per month for Rivers and her family in Clarke County, Alabama, with an additional five dollars per month to be paid if Dred's wife Sylvester is also capable of field work. Lodging, rations, and mending of clothes is included, and pay is to be delivered "at or by the end of this year" with deductions for doctors and medical care as well as "all lost time from slouth, sickness or otherwise, and all things furnished them not aforementioned." Dred is not to be absent without leave and faces expulsion from the property if the terms of the contract are violated. The final line of the contract appears in darker ink and states that expulsion must first be approved by the Assistant Superintendent of Freedment in Clarke County.

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