1821 U.S. Citizenship Certificate
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GUEST:
Well, I acquired the document through the WGBH Auction in 1978.
APPRAISER:
Oh, my goodness.
GUEST:
Yes. And it was certainly before black memorabilia became popular.
APPRAISER:
The rage that it is today, yes.
GUEST:
But because it was a certificate of citizenship for a person of color, I personally felt it should belong to a person of color, so I got the high bid.
APPRAISER:
If I may ask, how much did you pay for this in 1978?
GUEST:
I paid $75, which at the time my mother thought was outrageous, but... (chuckles) It was well worth it.
APPRAISER:
In retrospect, it wasn't outrageous. I need to share a couple exciting things with you here. This is an important document that is showing George Barker-- the gentleman right here, and he was born in 1788-- and that he is a free person of color and a citizen of America. And more importantly, it's showing descriptive information about his height-- he's five foot two; he has a "sable" complexion and he has "woolly" hair.
GUEST:
(chuckling) Yes.
APPRAISER:
Is that just not indicative of the time period, where they were describing African Americans with "woolly" hair?
GUEST:
Right, exactly.
APPRAISER:
The other thing that's exciting is that down here, we have where it says "'for the relief and protection of American seamen'…not having made provision for persons of color to obtain certificates of citizenship."
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
This document is so important. You have a wonderful seal right here. It's archivally framed. It's from Massachusetts. I've never seen something like this. With the genre of black memorabilia, we get to see so many types of documents that are attributed to slavery. We get to see certificate of freedom, we see manumission, writ of affidavit, bill of sales, court cases. But it's very unusual to see a document of this significance concerning a free person of color where it's all laid out in such exquisite form. We know his name, his height, his age, and the notary public. I mean, this document could not be more significant. Do you have any idea what it could be worth today?
GUEST:
Not a clue, just, uh... Yeah, no idea.
APPRAISER:
Just let me tell you. Scholars, collectors, museums, libraries would eat this up. How about $3,500 to $5,000 for this document?
GUEST:
Oh, my God! That's unbelievable!
APPRAISER:
Now, is your mom still living?
GUEST:
Yes, she is, and she's going to be mighty shocked!
APPRAISER:
Make sure you tell her that $75 many years ago was well spent.
GUEST:
That is amazing.
APPRAISER:
Thank you very much for sharing with the Antiques Roadshow.
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