Heading: (African-American, 1817 – Tennessee slaves, Daniel Boone)
Author: Pleasant Henderson
Title: Letter "leasing" slaves of Daniel Boone's Revolutionary War friend and Indian battle companion
Place Published: McMinnville, Tennessee
Publisher:
Date Published: Dec. 27, 1817
Description:

P.[leasant] Henderson. Autograph Letter Signed. McMinnville, [Tennessee]. Dec. 27, 1817. 2pp.+ detached address leaf. To William M. Quesenbury. Winchester, Tenn. About the "hire" of slaves owned by his late father, Colonel Samuel Henderson, close friend and Revolutionary War companion of Daniel Boone in a famed Indian battle fictionalized as "Last of the Mohicans". Very fragile, inexpertly laminated, separating at folds with some non-archival tape repair.

"...By my father's will, Ben and Adam are to hired out one year more...hire Ben and Ad and for the best price you can, paying a due regard to their usage or treatment. James Estill and G. Barnett wrote me they would give $80 for Adam and clothe him and pay his taxes if they will do so tell them have him...If you hire Ben compel the hirer to clothe and pay his tax. Deaks time will be out the 3rd Jany after which I want him to stay one week at Fanny's and then give him a pass to come to me as I shall keep him the next year...Enclosed you will find Driskill's Note for the hire of Dick... please present for payment if you see him. If you have collected as much as $60 after paying yourself tell Sister Fanny have that much..."

Kentucky frontiersman Daniel Boone was a man of much historical legend, but indisputably, the Henderson family played an important role in his life, including the famous incident mythically depicted by James Fennimore Cooper in his classic, Last of the Mohicans. The writer of this letter, Pleasant Henderson, was the son of Continental Army Colonel Samuel Henderson, whose uncle Richard, a lawyer and businessman, reportedly financed Boone's first hunting expeditions in the Kentucky mountains, hoping to carve out a 14th American colony near the settler station named Boonesborough in Daniel's honor. In 1776, Henderson's father was with Boone when three teenaged Boonesborough girls were kidnapped by Shawnee Indians, one being Boone's own daughter Jemima. Boone, Henderson and their companions pursued, caught up with the party and rescued the girls. Henderson married one of the young women; Pleasant was their son. The third captive was Pleasant's aunt Fanny, mentioned in this letter.

Both Henderson and Boone had slaves, though when Boone left Kentucky for Missouri, he reportedly freed them, as did his Kentucky friend Colonel James Estill, who offered to buy a Henderson slave from Pleasant after Samuel's death in 1816 - four years before Boone's. A rare document, written in a Cumberland frontier town, southwest of Boonesborough, which had just been settled a decade earlier.

Very good.