United States Redeemed Slaves: Alice and Charlie King (1862)


Figure 1.--This redeemed slave girl is Alice King. She was redeemed and adopted by Mrs. King of Lima, New York. Mrs. King also adopted Charlie, oprobably her little brother. Put your cursor on the image to see Charlie. The portrait was taken about 1861 or 62. We do not know where the children were from or just how Mrs. King selected them to redeem. Presumably she had to buy their freedom. These CDV portraits were reproduced commercially to raise funds.

We note matching CDV portraits od Alice and Charlie King. We are not sure that they are siblings, but they probably were. King is the name of the woman who redeemed and adopted them. Presumably they had the same slave birth mother, but we do not jnow this for certain. We do know that they were both slave boy redeemed by a Mrs. King of Lima, New York. She also adopted the children. Their portraits were taken at the same time which we can tell by the identical setting and outfits. The children wear matching dresses. The children seemed to have been redeemed about 1861, the year the Civil war broke out. We do not know when the CDV was taken, probably in 1861 or 62. The later date was more likely as the CDV was just being introduced in the early 60s. They could not have been taken earlier as the CDV process was not introduced in the United States earlier. The Emancipation Proclamation was not issued until late in 1862 and did not become effective until 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation, however, did not abolish the institution of slavery. We do not know where the children were from or just how Mrs. King selected them to redeem. Presumably she had to buy their freedom. This CDV was reproduced commercially to raise funds. The CDV process based on a negative made it ppossible to reproduce the images in large quantities. We do not know how the funds from the sale of the CDVs were used. Notice the great Civil War era drum in Charli's portrait. We suspecy that was a studio prop.









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Created: 1:09 AM 8/31/2008
Last updated: 1:09 AM 8/31/2008