MCI Project Summaries 2008 - Smithsonian Institution

MCI 6217.2 Five Thomas H. Porter Slave Buttons from the Danny Drain
Collection
MCI Staff: Carol A. Grissom, R. Jeff Speakman, Mel J. Wachowiak
Two copper alloy and three pewter buttons were examined prior to acquisition by
NMAAHC. They are believed to have been worn during the 1820s by the slaves of Thomas H.
Porter, a slave trader from Barbados said to have trafficked in slaves along the coasts of
Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Compositions of the buttons were
determined by X-ray fluorescence analysis, and, in the absence of gilding on the copper-alloy
buttons, an inscription on their reverses reading “FINE ORANGE STANDARD GILT” was
determined to indicate an imitation-gold finish. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) was
performed in an attempt to decipher a second inscription on the back of the copper-alloy buttons,
but unfortunately they were too corroded for this to be successful. From a materials standpoint it
was determined that the buttons were likely early nineteenth-century artifacts.
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