“What we do know about Grant himself and slavery is that he only ever personally owned one slave, a certain William Jones”
Oh Okay how about a statue of Grant and his one slave? I guess it was OK to own just one slave. Yeh thats the ticket! :-)
Fair enough. As long as we include the circumstances of the case, to the relatively minor extent they are known.
Here’s an interesting link to what little we know about Grant and Jones, including primary sources.
http://www.yandtblog.com/?p=288
Jones was probably a gift to Grant from his father-in-law, as it seems unlikely he would have had the capital to buy him at market value. But he certainly could have sold him, probably for $1000+, rather than free him.