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2pp. To “Brother Lumkin”, from "you sincear but unworthy Brother in Christ.", about “all the Negroes I purchased from you…”

“…you wood like to now what had become of the girl Emly, I still own her. She has a husband and has had one child but lost it. She has one of my men for a husband, he is my Farmer & the most valuable boy that I own, he can read and wright, weighs my cotten sets it down the waits correctly and thinks as much of his honour as a white man cood do. I also have the Boy Charles him and Emly both are members of the Babtist Church, all the Negroes I purchased from you except the Boy Matt are a live and doing well…"

Huckabee was a wealthy middle-aged cotton planter who had moved to Alabama from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Throughout his life, he was a devout Baptist, as, apparently, was his correspondent.  His church at Newbern included both whites and their Black slaves. Huckabee evidently took a more benevolent view of his “Negroes” than other large slave-owners, not only praising the integrity of his “most valuable boy” (who was probably more literate than Huckabee himself) but also referring to Charles and Emly as husband and wife at a time when formal marriage between slaves was prohibited by Southern law.