University of Virginia Library

Douglass was apparently a successful sugar refiner and/or merchant. The price he obtained for his sugar is unclear but $60 per thousand pounds seems reasonable. The other possibilities seem excessively low ($6/thousand) or high ($60,000). It is possible that he refers to Liberian rather than US dollars for the sale of the sugar, but he clearly refers to US dollars when he stipulates the amount of gold he has sent his children.