were
oftentimes purely perfunctory, and they are generally serviceable only as
aids in ascertaining the ratios of value between slaves of the diverse ages
and sexes. The appraisals of criminals, however, since they prescribed
actual payments on the basis of the market value each slave would have had
if his crime had not been committed, may be assumed under such laws as
Virginia maintained in the premises to be fairly accurate. A file of more
than a thousand such appraisals, with vouchers of payment attached, which
is preserved among the Virginia archives in the State Library at Richmond,
is particularly copious in regard to prices as well as in regard to crimes
and punishments.

[Footnote 20: The difficulties to be encountered in ascertaining the values
at any time and place are exemplified in the documents pertaining to slave
prices in the various states in the year 1815, printed in the _American
Historical Review_, XIX, 813-838. In the gleaning of slave prices I have
been actively assisted by Professor R.P. Brooks of the University of
Georgia and Miss Lillie Richardson of New Orleans.]

The bills of sale recording actual market transactions remain as the chief
and central source of information upon prices. Some thousands of these,
originating in the city of Charleston, are preserved in a single file among
the state archives of South Carolina at Columbia; other thousands are
scattered through the myriad miscellaneous notarial records in the court
house at New Orleans; many smaller accumulations are to be found in
county court houses far and wide, particularly in the cotton belt; and
considerable numbers are in private possession, along with plantation
journals and letters which sometimes contain similar data.

Now these documents more often than otherwise record the sale of slaves
in groups. One of the considerations involved was that a gang already
organized would save its purchaser time and trouble in establishing a new
plantation as a going concern, and therefore would probably bring a higher
gross price than if its members were sold singly. Another motive was that
of keeping slave families together, which served doubly in comporting with
scruples of conscience and inducing to the greater contentment of slaves
in their new employ. The documents of the time demonstrate repeatedly the
appreciation of equanimity as affecting value. But group sales give slight
information upon individual prices; and even the bills of i