Slave Trading in the Old South

Frederic Bancroft

Description

Overwhelming evidence against the historical view of slavery as a benevolent "peculiar institution"

Posting what he called "a most deadly array of facts," Frederic Bancroft exploded deeply entrenched myths about antebellum slavery when Slave Trading in the Old South was first published in 1931. As fresh and informative today as it was then, the classic study returns to print, giving a new generation of historians, students, and history enthusiasts access to Bancroft's pioneering examination of the domestic slave trade.

Drawing largely on research that could not be duplicated today—correspondence with individuals involved in the slave trade and interviews with former slaves—Bancroft exposed the commercial aspects of the enterprise, including the "breeding" and "rearing" of slaves for future sale to western states and territories, the separation of slave families, and the profitability of the practice. By showing that the slave trade so thoroughly dominated the South, Bancroft demonstrated antebellum slavery to be an essentially commercial, exploitative, and cruel industry rather than, as many historians have claimed, a benevolent "peculiar institution" in which the selling of slaves was a relatively rare exchange between neighbors. He also discredited the notion that slave traders were social outcasts, finding instead that they came from even the highest ranks of Southern society.

Michael Tadman's new introduction offers a comprehensive, thoughtful analysis of the evolving historical literature on the subject, reminding readers of the devastating effects the slave trade had both on Southern society as a whole and on its principal victims.

Sujets

• Social Science
• HISTORY
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Slavery
• History of the Americas
• United States
• FL
• KY
• LA
• TN
• MS
• SC
• NC
• AR
• VA
• GA

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 24 février 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781643364278
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 33 Mo

Extrait

SLAVE TRADING
IN THE
OLD SOUTH SLAVE TRADING
IN THE
OLD SOUTH
Frederic Bancroft
with a new introduction by
MICHAEL TADMAN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS
Published in Cooperation with the Institute for Southern Studies and the
South Caroliniana Society of the University of South Carolina Southern Classics Series
John G. Sproat, General Editor
Copyright © 1996 University of South Carolina Press
Paperback edition published by the University of South Carolina Press, 1996
Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina,
by the University of South Carolina Press, 2023
www.uscpress.com
Manufactured in the United States of America
32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
can be found at http://catalog.lov.gov/
ISBN 978-1-57003-103-8 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-64336-427-8 (ebook)CONTENTS
PAGE
ILLUSTRATIONS vii
GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE ix
INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL TADMAN xi
I. SOME PHASES OF THE BACKGROUND 1
II. EARLY DoMESTIC SLAVE-TRADING . 19
III. THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA "THE VERY SEAT AND CENTER" 45
IV. THE IMPORTANCE OF SLAVE-REARING. 67
V. VIRGINIA AND THE RICHMOND MARKET 88
VI. HERE AND THERE IN MARYLAND, KENTUCKY AND MISSOURI 120
VII. SLAVE-HIRING 145
VIII. THE HEIGHT OF THE SLAVE-TRADE IN CHARLESTON 165
IX. DIVIDING FAMILIES AND SELLING CHII.DREN
SEPARATELY.-RESTRICTIONS 197
X. SAVANNAH'S LEADING TRADER AND HIS LARGEST SAI.E 222
XI. MINOR TRADING IN THE CAROLINAS, GEORGIA AND TENNESSEE 237
XII. MEMPHIS: THE BoLTONS, THE FoRRESTS AND OTHERS . 250
XIII. VARIOUS FEATURES OF THE INTERSTATE TRADE 269
XIV. SOME ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI MARKETS . 294
XV. NEW ORLEANS THE MISTRESS OF THE TRADE 312
XVI. HIGH PRICES AND "THE NEGRO-FEVER" 339
XVII. THE STATUS OF SI.AVE-TRADING 365
XVIII. ESTIMATES AS TO NUMBERS, TRANSACTIONS AND V AI,UE. 382 ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece A SLAVE-AUCTION IN RICHMOND, IN 1853
From a sketch made from life by Eyre Crowe
FACING
PAGE
SLAVE-ADVERTISEMENTS IN THE CENTERVILLE, MARYLAND, Times and
Easter-Shore Public Advertiser, APRIL 19, 1834 32
ODD-FELLOWS IIALL AS IT LOOKED IN 1922 . 100
Richmond's busiest slave-mart was in the basement
FRoM A PHoTOGRAPH oF A SLAVE WITH A BACK ScARRED BY WHIPPING 108
ADVERTISEMENTS OF LOUISVILLE SLAVE-TRADERS 130
From the Louisville Democrat, January 1, 1859
ADVERTISMENTS OF LEXINGTON . 132
From the Lexington Semi-weekly Kentucky Statesman, January 13, 1860
THE OLD ExCHANGE oR CusTOMHOUSE IN CHARLESTON. 166
The bronze tablet is shown at the extreme right
THE AUCTION-PLACE JUST NORTH OF THE OLD EXCHANGE . 166
A SLAVE-AUCTION AT THE NoRTH oF THE OLD ExcHANGE, MARCH 10,
1853 . (Insert between) 168-69
From a drawing from life made by Eyre Crowe. From the IUustrated Llmdtm News of
November 29, 1856
CHALMERSSTREETASITWASIN1907 . 170
THE SLAVE-MARTBUILDINGASITWASIN 1907 170
Negro tenements had been built inside
RYAN's "NIGGER JAIL" 172
Showing the rear, the kitchen (on the right) and part of the yard, as they looked in 1907
THOMAS A. PoWELL & Co.'s SLAVE-ADVERTISEMENT . 296
From the Montgomery Confedemtion, December 8, 1859 GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE
IF ONLY BECAUSE it was the first major study of slavery and
slave trading to break out of the rigid mold cast earlier by
U. B. Phillips, Frederic Bancroft's Slave Trading in the Old
South is a work of timeless significance. Michael Tadman's
introduction to this Southern Classics edition offers a compre­
hensive and insightful analysis of the evolving historical litera­
ture on the subject. As such, it reminds readers of the devas­
tating effects the "peculiar institution" had on Southern
society as a whole, as well as on its principal victims.
* * *
Under the sponsorship of the Institute for Southern Studies
and the South Caroliniana Society of the University of South
Carolina, Southern Classics returns to general circulation
books of importance dealing with the history and culture of
the American South. Chronological age alone does not deter­
mine a title's designation as a Southern Classic. The criteria
include, as well, significance in contributing to a broad under­
standing of the region, timeliness in relation to events and
moments of peculiar interest to the American South, useful­
ness in the classroom, and suitability for inclusion in personal
and institutional collections on the region.
JOHN G. SPROAT
General Editor, Southern Classics Series INTRODUCTION
WHEN Slave Trading in the Old South was published in 1931,
the black poet Sterling A. Brown predicted that white South­
erners would not like it. They had, he argued, developed com­
fortable myths about the South, and would damn Frederic
Bancroft's book as "later generation abolitionism"-and
"wouldn't read it." But he believed that Bancroft's work
would endure "because it happens that as in so many cases,
facts are abolitionist." Slave Trading in the Old South, wrote
Brown, might become "covered by another avalanche of
[white Southern] nonsense about the Old South's grandeur
and her 'peculiar institution.' " But, "let the avalanche
come," he declared. "This book is a solid rock, not to be
moved. It is here and will be here when time has swept all of
1 the loose dirt [of the avalanche] away. "
The black historian Carter G. Woodson, in the Journal of
Negro History (1931), was also quick to greet Slave Trading
as a work of unshakeable and pivotal importance-and again
he was excited about Bancroft's challenge to traditions. White
Southern writers, he argued, after promoting their mythical
notion that Reconstruction (after the Civil War) had been
dominated by black corruption and tyranny, had, by the turn
of the century, filled the nation's universities with the planta­
tion myth. In this version of slavery, masters were kind, slaves
were not overworked or cruelly beaten, masters did not rape
their black women, slave children were not sold from their
parents, and slave trading did not separate husband from
wife. The work of Southern writers, he argued, had brought
academic legitimacy to the vilification of black citizens, and
had gained respectability for the social, economic, and politi­
cal proscription of blacks. Woodson therefore rejoiced at the
publication of Bancroft's study-a "book ... surcharged with
1 Sterling A. Brown, "The Truth Will Out," Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life
10 (1932): 23-24. Xll INTRODUCTION
facts" to reveal a realistic black and Southern history. Ban­
croft, he wrote, "has uprooted so much of this rewritten his­
tory that it will be necessary to work out another program to
cover up the truth in some way during the next fifty years.
Dr. Bancroft has exploded so many pet theories of Ulrich B.
Phillips [the principal rewriter] that his reputation as an au­
2 thority on slavery must find new ground on which to stand. "
Bancroft's book was important in the 1930s, and remains
important today. At a time, in the 1930s, when the "Jim
Crow" system ruled the South, and when even the North had
moved from an abolitionist view of slavery to Phillips's thesis
of friendly masters and contented slaves, Bancroft revived the
abolitionist thesis. In so doing he raised awkward questions
about the South and its heritage. Moreover, he did so in a
book which displayed an unprecedented density of documenta­
tion from primary sources. It could, of course, be argued that
he had chosen to focus on the most obviously commercial as­
pects of slavery by examining the buying and selling of slaves,
the separation of families, and the "rearing" of slaves for sale
to "Negro traders." But if Bancroft was right, and the trade
in slaves was so thoroughly dominant in the Old South, then it
followed that antebellum slavery was essentially commercial,
exploitative, and cruel. In that case, slavery was not the be­
nevolent "peculiar institution" whose image was so central to
white Southern traditions.
For any tenable historical theory of how slavery worked in
the Old South, we need to know about the sale of slaves. This
applies whether the theory is one of a fairly relaxed accommo­
dation between master and slave, one of a grudging and dis­
trustful accommodation, one of abject slave submission to the
3 master, or one of an outright rejection of slavery by slaves.
2 [Carter G. Woodson], review of Slave Trading, Journal of Negro History 16 (1931):
240-41.
3 See later sections of this introductory essay for comments on accommodation theo­
ries (Phillips, Fogel and Engerman, Genovese), on a thesis of very limited accommoda­
tion (Tadman), and on a theory of slave submission to the master (Elkins). For a
thesis that slaves comprehensively rejected the system of slavery, see Herbert Aptheker,
American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 1943). INTRODUCTION Xlll
The scale of slave trading and of the breaking up of slave
families by sale would inevitably have had a profound effect
on the morale of slaves, and would have deeply influenced the
attitudes of slaves towards masters and towards slavery.
Moreover, the readiness or reluctance of the master to sell
slaves, and to break up families, provides historians with a
critical index of the master's benevolence, indifference, or cru­
elty towards his slaves. These critically important issues were
at the center of Bancroft's study.
Slave Trading in the Old South: An Attack on
''Amiable Southern Traditions"
Frederic Bancroft was born to prosperous white parents in
Illinois in 1860. His father had antislavery beliefs, Frederic
himself had abolitionist heroes as a young man, and the slav­
ery book which he eventually published had much in common
4 with the antebellum abolitionist analysis of slavery. Essen­
tially, the abolitionist thesis had been that slave agriculture
was unprofitable except on the virgin lands of the Southwest.
In the older states, this argument went, slavery was kept alive
only by the deliberate "rearing"