two negro women at forty-five. A boy, five years of age, was listed at ten pounds, two girls, two and three years of age respectively, at twelve, and an infant seven months of age, at two pounds and ten shillings. In the same year an infant, six months of age, was held at three pounds sterling, and a child, eight years of age, at ten pounds.[1]
In Middlesex County, the prices of slaves seem to have maintained a slightly higher average than in the counties already named. In the estate of Major Robert Beverley, the elder, the inventory being filed in 1687, the value of the men ranged from twenty-six to twenty-eight pounds sterling.[2] Ten years later, the young slaves belonging to the estate of Richard Willis were listed at thirty-one pounds apiece, although in some instances so youthful as to be described as lads. The young women were valued at the same rates.[3] The appraisement of the negroes belonging to Christopher Robinson was still higher. Of the ten who were included in the inventory of his estate, four men were entered at forty pounds apiece, one girl at thirty, and another at twenty-five; one woman at thirty-five pounds, and a woman and child at forty.[4] The valuation of the negroes included in the estate of Ralph Wormeley, the inventory being filed in 1700, was not quite so high. The men and boys were appraised at thirty-five pounds sterling, and the girls at thirty. The prices in Lower Norfolk show no difference from those enumerated in the case of York County. In Rappahannock, in 1695, a negro boy was entered at twenty-six pounds sterling, and a girl at twenty-four. The valuation of adults was perhaps considerably higher.[5]
