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Article: WEDDINGS ON CONTESTED GROUNDS: SLAVE MARRIAGE IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH.(Review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- September 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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On 26 December 1849, Thomas Chaplin went deer hunting with some friends, a trip that afforded him "a very pleasant time." More importantly, it afforded Chaplin a pretext for absenting Tombee, his 376-acre cotton plantation on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, where two of his 60 slaves "took husbands" that day. Their master wanted nothing to do with the proceedings, and he expressed his disdain in his daily journal:
Their mistress gave them a grand supper (which they did not deserve).... I
did not wish to be here to see the tomfoolery that was going on about it,
as if they were ladies of quality. They had out, with wife's permission of
course, very ...