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Michael Rejebian celebrated his birthday the only sensible way: he took the day off and went relic hunting! The only problem was, there didn't seem to be much else to celebrate. "I was having pretty poor luck," he admits. "Finally, about sunset, I dug what I thought was just a broken piece of metal. I rubbed the dirt off it and saw a date, 1838, and the word Porter. Thanks to an article I'd read in W&ET, I knew I'd found a slave tag! The mystery, of course, is how it traveled all the way from Charleston, South Carolina, where it was issued, to a central Mississippi plantation. According to the Department of Archives & History, it's the only one ever found in Mississippi." Michael's birthday present, which would easily bring $2,000+ at auction, was destined instead to become a present to us all. "Given its significance, I recently donated it to the state museum," he says, "in the hope that more people might appreciate this important piece of our history."
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