Henry Page Daguerrotype

Enslaved carriage driver Henry Page poses for a daguerreotype portrait sometime in the 1850s. Page, as he appears in this image, looks quite different from how his enslaver Edward Virginius Valentine chose to depict him in an 1873 portrait bust. His expression is more serious, and his clothing is not quite as well kept. An 1856 letter survives from Page, dictated to his enslaver Sarah Bennetta Valentine and addressed to his son who was living in another state. He wrote: “Imagine the joy of a Father’s heart on receiving a letter from a son whom he had never expected to hear from again." While Valentine chose to use Henry Page’s likeness to depict a cheerful man, happy in his enslavement, the evidence from Page himself points to family separation and distress.