Particulars of two valuable sugar plantations, St. Kitts . . .

Created to publicize a specific event, handbills like this advertisement for the sale of two sugar plantations on St. Kitts rarely survive to the present day. The advertised auction took place five years before the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, and the bill lauds in useful detail the character of the lands (“the cane land has the advantage of being free of nut grass”), the types of buildings, the quantity of livestock, and the number of slaves—“in general fine healthy people.” This item is all the more extraordinary for its numerous manuscript annotations, including the outcome of the sale (to “Thomas Thomas” for 16,250 pounds), specifying that “the Female slave [Suckey]sp?? has been manumitted, and consequently she is not to be included.”