During the mid-19th century, photographs of formerly enslaved children were sold to raise money for freed slaves’ education in New Orleans. Colonel Hanks and Phillip Bacon brought these portraits back from New Orleans, where General Butler had set the children free. Mr. Bacon traveled to New Orleans with the army and served for eighteen months as Assistant-Superintendent of Freedmen under Colonel Hanks, establishing the first school in Louisiana for emancipated slaves — these children were among his pupils. Harper’s Weekly published an article about them on January 30, 1864, providing one of the only known records of these enslaved children.
Charles Taylor was eight years old. He was twice sold as a slave — first by his father and “owner,” Alexander Wethers, of Lewis County, Virginia, to a slave-trader named Harrison, who sold him to Mr. Thornhill of New Orleans. The boy was clearly intelligent, and though he had been in school less than a year, he read and wrote very well. His mother was a mulatto. She had one daughter sold into Texas before she herself left Virginia, and one son who she believed was with his father in Virginia.
Isaac White was a Black boy of eight years, and no less intelligent than his lighter-skinned companions. He had been in school for seven months.
Augusta Boujey was nine years old. Her mother, who was almost white, was owned by her half-brother, named Solamon, who still retained two of her children.
Rebecca Huger was eleven years old and worked as a slave in her father’s house as the personal attendant to a girl slightly older than herself. She appeared white, with no visible trace of Black ancestry in her complexion, hair, or features. During the few months she had been in school, she had learned to read well and wrote as neatly as most children her age. Her mother and grandmother lived in New Orleans, where they supported themselves through their own labor. The grandmother, an intelligent mulatto, told Mr. Bacon that she had “raised” many children, but these were all that remained with her.
Rosa Downs was not quite seven years old. She was a fair child with a blonde complexion and silky hair. Her father was a Confederate rebel. She had one sister who was as white as she was and three brothers who were darker. Her mother, a mulatto, lived in a poor hut in New Orleans and worked hard to support her family.
