State of Alabama Chambers County [July 24, 1865]
This to certify that we the undersigned hands formally benlonging to Benjamine Blasingame of the county and State aforesaid but made free by the authoritys of the United States are all willing to stay and work for the aforesaid Benjamine Blasingame untill the twenty fifth day of December next for the consideration of our victuals and clotheing as I been usualy doing and we bind our selves to attend to business faithfully as heretofore I witness hereoff affix our several names this 24 July 1865
Names
[13 signatures]
Statement of Like et al., 24 July 1865, Unregistered Letters Received, series 9, AL Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands, Record Group 105, National Archives. Witnessed. Each of the freedpeople–eight women and five men–signed with an “X.” Their names and the statement are all in the same handwriting. Three of the women contracted for their children as well as for themselves–two of them for two children each, and one for eight children. Another woman was described as “old and helpless.”
Published in Land and Labor, 1865, p. 374.