The above is the original “Indenture” or sale agreement for the purchase of the Bethel Burying Ground on April 10, 1810 by Richard Allen and the trustees of Bethel AME Church. The document is owned by the Smithsonian Institute and will be exhibited at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, opening on the National Mall in 2015. The document will be shown along with Harriet Tubman’s shawl, Nat Turner’s Bible, a Tuskegee Airmen fighter plane, Emmett Till’s coffin and an original slave cabin from Edisto Island, South Carolina. (Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institue.)
For a larger photo of the document please click on Smithsonian Document II
Bethel Burying Ground Project 