Creator: Miscellaneous southern business letters.
Collection number: 3739
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Abstract: Chiefly unconnected letters, 1833-1858, relating to business and trade conducted in the South. Letters are to and from various merchants, agents, planters, lawyers, clerks, ship captains, and other individuals doing business at ports along the North American coast from New Orleans to Maine and at scattered locations in the interior. Many letters are about aspects of the cotton trade, such as shipping and contracting for sale of cotton. Other types of business, such as the selling of tobacco, leather, steel, and foodstuffs, are mentioned less frequently. Several letters concern the collection of money due. Besides showing general business trends, these letters document economic relationships between the slave and non-slave regions of eastern North America.
Repository: Southern Historical Collection
Collection Highlights: Folder 21 contains a letter from W. M. W. Cochran at Natchez, Miss., to D. S. Kennedy, Esq., at New York, N.Y. (dated 7 June 1850). The letter discusses methods to compel J. L. Dobyns to pay off his debt, including the suggested mortgaging of 40 slaves.