[Manuscript "Notebook" Recording Three Inventories of Slaves, Listing Name, Value, and Age of Each Enslaved Person]

[Hardeman County, Tn, 1847. About very good.. [8] leaves. 12mo. Loose leaves, previously stitched, written on rectos only. Light toning and wear. Small notebook containing inventories of enslaved people, as well as the contents of an estate. Though there are three listings of enslaved people, they seem to all relate to each other, with some names appearing on all three lists, sometimes with varying valuations. The first list includes twenty-three names, including four unnamed children. The highest valuations are placed on the young men (aged eighteen to thirty-six) and on the women of childbearing years (aged fifteen to twenty-seven, a seventeen year-old noted as having an infant). The oldest people listed are in their sixties. The other two lists have nineteen and fourteen names respectively, again with values and ages listed. A fourth listing of names does not include ages or values, and would seem to be of white men, since several have last names. The other three pages of the notebook concern the estate of William Palmer [?] to J.J. Polk. It lists the cost of recording the will, as well as the cash paid out to various persons and the contents including three wagons, 6000 pounds of pork, one buggy, and eighteen head of cattle. There is also a brief accounting of the estate of C.T. Howard from 1847. The compiler of the notebook is thought to be John Jackson Polk of Hardeman County, Tennessee. Whether this is an inventory of his own slaves, an appraisal, or part of the estate previously discussed is not known. John Jackson Polk owned and operated a cotton plantation in Hickory Valley in Hardeman County, conducting other business in Memphis and New Orleans. He was the first cousin of President James K. Polk. John himself owned many slaves, reporting 102 and 100 slaves on the federal slave schedules for 1850 and 1860.