Eady Bates Appraised Eady for Twenty-Five Dollars in St. Helena Parish, Louisiana

Eady Bates Appraised for Twenty-Five Dollars 

Whenever I go into a courthouse to conduct genealogy research, I never know what I may find. In the case of Eady Bates, age 80 years old, appraised for $25.00. Montreal Harrell, my assistant and I were looking in the Bates family files, and we came across the enslaved belonging to Ephriam Bates, 1829. 

His inventory consist of two tracks of 640 acres of land; 13 enslaved people. His total inventory valued at $14, 569. Eady stayed on my mind all that day. She was the same age my mother was when she passed away this year. It made me sick to the stomach to know they treated her with no dignity and respect. Somehow today, I feel that Eady's story will be told. When I open the files drawers, I don't know who's story will come to the light. I just know that the ancestors do not want me to forget them. When slavery was abolished, Eady were deceased due to the fact that she was eighty-years old in 1829. I hope that I can find her offsprings if she had any. 

Just imagine Eady worked all of her life, most likely give the Bates family everything she could, not be sold with the livestock and furniture. And in the end, they showed her just what they thought about her. She was only worth $25.00. The old horse saddle was twelve dollars let then what Eady a human being appraised for. 

As a matter of fact, they could have sold her for much less than twenty-five dollars. The inventory said she appraised for and not sold for twenty-five dollars. Recently I learned that my paternal third great-grandmother was Rebecca Bates Williams. The Bates family were from Amite, County, Mississippi. Some settled in McComb, Mississippi and St. Helena Parish, Louisiana. Well that's a whole new story for my paternal genealogy research. That's was Monteral's first time finding such a record. Holding and reading a record of someone being sold was a little emotional for her. 

Dr. Antoinette Harrell and Monteral Harrell Climmons 
researching at the St. Helena Parish Courthouse
Photos Credit: Walter C. Black, Sr. 

Special Thanks: St. Helena Parish Courthouse