Certifying payment for "free girl of colour" employed at a hospital (after battle of new Orleans) - k12042
kg: After Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson Certifies Payment to "Free Girl of Colour" Employed in Hospital [American President] [Slavery content]
Document Signed (“Andrew Jackson Major Genl Comdg”), authorizing payment to a “free girl of colour for work in the military hospital”; New Orleans, LA, March 3, 1815.
Provenance: Acquired from Christie’s auction, The Forbes Collection.
K12042 $9,500
Historical Background:
Less than two months after Jackson’s dramatic victory on the battlefield at New Orleans, he certifies the payment of a worker at the hospital tending the sick and wounded from that battle. The pay warrant specifies that “Rosina, a free girl of colour,” is to be paid “for 1 months service as a washwoman in the Hospital for Genl. Coffee’s Brigade of T.V. [Tennessee Volunteers]...$10 a month...the lowest price at which, under existing circumstances, washwomen could be procur’d...Colonel William Peat will pay to Rosina ten Dollars.” The document has been countersigned by the director of the hospital, David Kerr and by John Walker. Rosina, to signify receipt of her salary, has added her mark.
At New Orleans, Jackson commanded a motley 4,700-man army composed of volunteers, militia, free blacks and freebooters of Jean Laffite. British General Packenham’s attack on January 15 was decimated by accurate American fire. General Coffee’s brigade, the one concerned in the present document, occupied a key position in Jackson’s line and played an integral role in the victory. The seventy American casualties of the battle were subsequently treated in battlefield hospitals already occupied by numerous comrades stricken with climate-induced diseases.
Condition:
1 page, folio (12¼ x 87/16 inches); browning along edges and at folds.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845): Seventh president of the United States (1829-1837), born in Waxhaw, South Carolina. Trained as a lawyer, elected to Congress (1796) and to the Senate (1797) for Tennessee, and later served as Supreme Court judge in that state (1798-1804). During the war of 1812, he served as commander of the South and secured his military fame through campaigns against the Creek Indians and a victory over the British at New Orleans (1815). Jackson’s politics split the Republican party during his first term, resulting in the formation of the Democratic Republicans, or Democrats, of which Jackson was a member and the National Republicans, or Whigs. Jackson’s election in 1828 was the first in which a great number of people had become involved in electoral politics, and his supporters demanded a share of the spoils. His administration satisfied them by removing government employees wholesale and replacing them with its friends. This system would come to dominate American politics for the rest of the century. Jackson relied heavily on the use of his veto and party leadership to assume command rather than defer to Congress in policy-making. His failure to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, a federally sponsored private corporation, caused its collapse but ultimately won the approval of the American public.
Document Signed (“Andrew Jackson Major Genl Comdg”), authorizing payment to a “free girl of colour for work in the military hospital”; New Orleans, LA, March 3, 1815.
Provenance: Acquired from Christie’s auction, The Forbes Collection.
K12042 $9,500
Historical Background:
Less than two months after Jackson’s dramatic victory on the battlefield at New Orleans, he certifies the payment of a worker at the hospital tending the sick and wounded from that battle. The pay warrant specifies that “Rosina, a free girl of colour,” is to be paid “for 1 months service as a washwoman in the Hospital for Genl. Coffee’s Brigade of T.V. [Tennessee Volunteers]...$10 a month...the lowest price at which, under existing circumstances, washwomen could be procur’d...Colonel William Peat will pay to Rosina ten Dollars.” The document has been countersigned by the director of the hospital, David Kerr and by John Walker. Rosina, to signify receipt of her salary, has added her mark.
At New Orleans, Jackson commanded a motley 4,700-man army composed of volunteers, militia, free blacks and freebooters of Jean Laffite. British General Packenham’s attack on January 15 was decimated by accurate American fire. General Coffee’s brigade, the one concerned in the present document, occupied a key position in Jackson’s line and played an integral role in the victory. The seventy American casualties of the battle were subsequently treated in battlefield hospitals already occupied by numerous comrades stricken with climate-induced diseases.
Condition:
1 page, folio (12¼ x 87/16 inches); browning along edges and at folds.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845): Seventh president of the United States (1829-1837), born in Waxhaw, South Carolina. Trained as a lawyer, elected to Congress (1796) and to the Senate (1797) for Tennessee, and later served as Supreme Court judge in that state (1798-1804). During the war of 1812, he served as commander of the South and secured his military fame through campaigns against the Creek Indians and a victory over the British at New Orleans (1815). Jackson’s politics split the Republican party during his first term, resulting in the formation of the Democratic Republicans, or Democrats, of which Jackson was a member and the National Republicans, or Whigs. Jackson’s election in 1828 was the first in which a great number of people had become involved in electoral politics, and his supporters demanded a share of the spoils. His administration satisfied them by removing government employees wholesale and replacing them with its friends. This system would come to dominate American politics for the rest of the century. Jackson relied heavily on the use of his veto and party leadership to assume command rather than defer to Congress in policy-making. His failure to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, a federally sponsored private corporation, caused its collapse but ultimately won the approval of the American public.