[lentulusgracchus]

$150 would not have purchased any slave, let alone an adult man with skills, on the open market at that time, so it seems likely that was a hire agreement.

LOL -- trust a sharp pencil to spot that one!

[Tax-chick]

Thanks for the compliment - numbers do jump out at me! In this case, roughly the same number as the annual fee Jackson was receiving for the slave he hired out to VMI.

I think that whole situation is a marvelous illustration of Jackson's Christian virtue: The man asked Jackson to purchase him, and offered to work off the cost. Jackson likely lost money, as adult male slaves were priced $1,500 and up at the time. If Jackson had simply freed the man, he would have been refusing the black man the dignity of making a deal man-to-man, denying their fundamental human equality. I admire him for following the course Robertson describes.