American Negro Slavery Part 15

[Footnote 28: Portland, Ala., _Evening Advertiser_, April 12, 1833.]

[Footnote 29: _Southern Ladies' Book_ (Macon, Ga.), April, 1840.]

As a practical measure to relieve the stress of the older districts a beginning was made in seed selection, manuring and crop rotation to enhance the harvests; horses were largely replaced by mules, whose earlier maturity, greater hardihood and longer lives made their use more economical for plow and wagon work;[30] the straight furrows of earlier times gave place in the Piedmont to curving ones which followed the hill contours and when supplemented with occasional gra.s.s balks and ditches checked the scouring of the rains and conserved in some degree the thin soils of the region; a few textile factories were built to better the local market for cotton and lower the cost of cloth as well as to yield profits to their proprietors; the home production of grain and meat supplies was in some measure increased; and river and highway improvements and railroad construction were undertaken to lessen the expenses of distant marketing.[31] Some of these recourses were promptly adopted in the newer settlements also; and others proved of little avail for the time being. The net effect of the betterments, however, was an appreciable offsetting of the western advantage; and this, when added to the love of home, the disrelish of primitive travel and pioneer life, and the dread of the costs and risks involved in removal, dissuaded mult.i.tudes from the project of migration. The actual depopulation of the Atlantic states was less than the plaints of the time would suggest. The volume of emigration was undoubtedly great, and few newcomers came in to fill the gaps. But the birth rate alone in those generations of ample families more than replaced the losses year by year in most localities. The sense of loss was in general the product not of actual depletion but of disappointment in the expectation of increase.

[Footnote 30: H.T. Cook, _The Life and Legacy of David R. Williams_ (New York, 1916), pp. 166-168.]

[Footnote 31: U.B. Phillips, _History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to 1860_.]

The non-slaveholding backwoodsmen formed the vanguard of settlement on each frontier in turn; the small slaveholders followed on their heels and crowded each fertile district until the men who lived by hunting as well as by farming had to push further westward; finally the larger planters with their crowded carriages, their lumbering wagons and their trudging slaves arrived to consolidate the fields of such earlier settlers as would sell.

It often seemed to the wayfarer that all the world was on the move. But in the districts of durable soil thousands of men, clinging to their homes, repelled every attack of the western fever.

CHAPTER XI

THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE

In the New England town of Plymouth in November, 1729, a certain Thompson Phillips who was about to sail for Jamaica exchanged a half interest in his one-legged negro man for a similar share in Isaac Lathrop's negro boy who was to sail with Phillips and be sold on the voyage. Lathrop was meanwhile to teach the man the trade of cordwaining, and was to resell his share to Phillips at the end of a year at a price of 40 sterling.[1] This transaction, which was duly concluded in the following year, suggests the existence of a trade in slaves on a small scale from north to south in colonial times. Another item in the same connection is an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Boston Gazette_ of August 17, 1761, offering for sale young slaves just from Africa and proposing to take in exchange "any negro men, strong and hearty though not of the best moral character, which are proper subjects of transportation";[2] and a third instance appears in a letter of James Habersham of Georgia in 1764 telling of his purchase of a parcel of negroes at New York for work on his rice plantation.[3] That the disestablishment of slavery in the North during and after the American Revolution enhanced the exportation of negroes was recited in a Vermont statute of 1787,[4] and is shown by occasional items in Southern archives.

One of these is the registry at Savannah of a bill of sale made at New London in 1787 for a mulatto boy "as a servant for the term of ten years only, at the expiration of which time he is to be free."[5] Another is a report from an official at Norfolk to the Governor of Virginia, in 1795, relating that the captain of a sloop from Boston with three negroes on board pleaded ignorance of the Virginia law against the bringing in of slaves.[6]

[Footnote 1: Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society _Proceedings_, XXIV, 335, 336.]

[Footnote 2: Reprinted in Joshua Coffin, _An Account of Some of the Princ.i.p.al Slave Insurrections_ (New York, 1860), p. 15.]

[Footnote 3: "The Letters of James Habersham," in the Georgia Historical Society _Collections_, VI, 22, 23.]

[Footnote 4: _New England Register_, XXIX, 248, citing Vermont _Statutes_, 1787, p. 105.]

[Footnote 5: U.B. Phillips, "Racial Problems, Adjustments and Disturbances in the Ante-bellum South," in _The South in the Building of the Nation_, IV, 218.]

[Footnote 6: _Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, VIII, 255.]

The federal census returns show that from 1790 onward the decline in the number of slaves in the Northern states was more than counterbalanced by the increase of their free negroes. This means either that the selling of slaves to the southward was very slight, or that the statistical effect of it was canceled by the northward flight of fugitive slaves and the migration of negroes legally free. There seems to be no evidence that the traffic across Mason and Dixon's line was ever of large dimensions, the following curious item from a New Orleans newspaper in 1818 to the contrary notwithstanding: "Jersey negroes appear to be peculiarly adapted to this market--especially those that bear the mark of Judge Van Winkle, as it is understood that they offer the best opportunity for speculation. We have the right to calculate on large importations in future, from the success which hitherto attended the sale."[7]

[Footnote 7: Augusta, Ga., _Chronicle_, Aug. 22, 1818, quoting the New Orleans _Chronicle_, July 14, 1818.]

The internal trade at the South began to be noticeable about the end of the eighteenth century. A man at Knoxville, Tennessee, in December, 1795, sent notice to a correspondent in Kentucky that he was about to set out with slaves for delivery as agreed upon, and would carry additional ones on speculation; and he concluded by saying "I intend carrying on the business extensively."[8] In 1797 La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt met a "drove of negroes" about one hundred in number,[9] whose owner had abandoned the planting business in the South Carolina uplands and was apparently carrying them to Charleston for sale. In 1799 there was discovered in the Georgia treasury a shortage of some ten thousand dollars which a contemporary news item explained as follows: Mr. Sims, a member of the legislature, having borrowed the money from the treasurer, entrusted it to a certain Speers for the purchase of slaves in Virginia. "Speers accordingly went and purchased a considerable number of negroes; and on his way returning to this state the negroes rose and cut the throats of Speers and another man who accompanied him. The slaves fled, and about ten of them, I think, were killed. In consequence of this misfortune Mr. Sims was rendered unable to raise the money at the time the legislature met."[10] Another transaction achieved record because of a literary effusion which it prompted. Charles Mott Lide of South Carolina, having inherited a fortune, went to Virginia early in 1802 to buy slaves, and began to establish a sea-island cotton plantation in Georgia. But misfortune in other investments forced him next year to sell his land, slaves and crops to two immigrants from the Bahama Islands. Thereupon, wrote he, "I composed the following valedictory, which breathes something of the tenderness of Ossian."[11] Callous history is not concerned in the farewell to his "sweet asylum," but only in the fact that he bought slaves in Virginia and carried them to Georgia. A grand jury at Alexandria presented as a grievance in 1802, "the practice of persons coming from distant parts of the United States into this district for the purpose of purchasing slaves."[12] Such fugitive items as these make up the whole record of the trade in its early years, and indeed const.i.tute the main body of data upon its career from first to last.

[Footnote 8: Unsigned MS. draft in the Wisconsin Historical Society, Draper collection, printed in _Plantation and Frontier_, II, 55, 56.]

[Footnote 9: La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, _Travels in the United States_, p.

592.]

[Footnote 10: Charleston, S.C., _City Gazette_, Dec. 21, 1799.]

[Footnote 11: Alexander Gregg, _History of the Old Cheraws_ (New York, 1877), pp. 480-482.]

[Footnote 12: Quoted in a speech in Congress in 1829, _Register of Debates_, V, 177.]

As soon as the African trade was closed, the interstate traffic began to a.s.sume the aspect of a regular business though for some years it not only continued to be of small scale but was oftentimes merely incidental in character. That is to say, migrating planters and farmers would in some cases carry extra slaves bought with a view to reselling them at western prices and applying the proceeds toward the expense of their new homesteads. The following advertis.e.m.e.nt by William Rochel at Natchez in 1810 gives an example of this: "I have upwards of twenty likely Virginia born slaves now in a flat bottomed boat lying in the river at Natchez, for sale cheaper than has been sold here in years.[13] Part of said negroes I wish to barter for a small farm. My boat may be known by a large cane standing on deck."

[Footnote 13: Natchez, Miss., _Weekly Chronicle_, April 2, 1810.]

The heyday of the trade fell in the piping times of peace and migration from 1815 to 1860. Its greatest activity was just prior to the panic of 1837, for thereafter the flow was held somewhat in check, first by the hard times in the cotton belt and then by an agricultural renaissance in Virginia. A Richmond newspaper reported in the fall of 1836 that estimates by intelligent men placed Virginia's export in the preceding year at 120,000 slaves, of whom at least two thirds had been carried by emigrating owners, and the rest by dealers.[14] This was probably an exaggeration for even the greatest year of the exodus. What the common volume of the commercial transport was can hardly be ascertained from the available data.

[Footnote 14: _Niles' Register_, LI, 83 (Oct. 8, 1836), quoting the _Virginia Times_.]

The slave trade was partly systematic, partly casual. For local sales every public auctioneer handled slaves along with other property, and in each city there were brokers buying them to sell again or handling them on commission. One of these at New Orleans in 1854 was Thomas Foster who advertised that he would pay the highest prices for sound negroes as well as sell those whom merchants or private citizens might consign him.

Expecting to receive negroes throughout the season, he said, he would have a constant stock of mechanics, domestics and field hands; and in addition he would house as many as three hundred slaves at a time, for such as were importing them from other states.[16] Similarly Clark and Grubb, of Whitehall Street in Atlanta, when advertising their business as wholesale grocers, commission merchants and negro brokers, announced that they kept slaves of all cla.s.ses constantly on hand and were paying the highest market prices for all that might be offered.[16] At Nashville, William L. Boyd, Jr., and R.W. Porter advertised as rival slave dealers in 1854;[17] and in the directory of that city for 1860 E.S. Hawkins, G.H. Hitchings, and Webb, Merrill and Company were also listed in this traffic. At St. Louis in 1859 Corbin Thompson and Bernard M. Lynch were the princ.i.p.al slave dealers. The rates of the latter, according to his placard, were 37-1/2 cents per day for board and 2-1/2 per cent, commission on sales; and all slaves entrusted to his care were to be held at their owners' risk.[18]

[Footnote 15: _Southern Business Directory_ (Charleston, 1854), I, 163.]

[Footnote 16: Atlanta _Intelligencer_, Mch. 7, 1860.]

[Footnote 17: _Southern Business Directory_, II, 131.]

[Footnote 18: H.A. Trexler, _Slavery in Missouri, 1804-1865_ (Baltimore, 1914), p. 49.]

On the other hand a rural owner disposed to sell a slave locally would commonly pa.s.s the word round among his neighbors or publish a notice in the county newspaper. To this would sometimes be appended a statement that the slave was not to be sent out of the state, or that no dealers need apply.

The following is one of many such Maryland items: "Will be sold for cash or good paper, a negro woman, 22 years old, and her two female children. She is sold for want of employment, and will not be sent out of the state.

Apply to the editor."[19] In some cases, whether rural or urban, the slave was sent about to find his or her purchaser. In the city of Was.h.i.+ngton in 1854, for example, a woman, whose husband had been sold South, was furnished with the following doc.u.ment: "The bearer, Mary Jane, and her two daughters, are for sale. They are sold for no earthly fault whatever. She is one of the most ladylike and trustworthy servants I ever knew. She is a first rate parlour servant; can arrange and set out a dinner or party supper with as much taste as the most of white ladies. She is a pretty good mantua maker; can cut out and make vests and pantaloons and roundabouts and joseys for little boys in a first rate manner. Her daughters' ages are eleven and thirteen years, brought up exclusively as house servants. The eldest can sew neatly, both can knit stockings; and all are accustomed to all kinds of house work. They would not be sold to speculators or traders for any price whatever." The price for the three was fixed at $1800, but a memorandum stated that a purchaser taking the daughters at $1000 might have the mother on a month's trial. The girls were duly bought by Dr. Edward Maynard, who we may hope took the mother also at the end of the stipulated month.[20] In the cities a few slaves were sold by lottery. One Boulmay, for example, advertised at New Orleans in 1819 that he would sell fifty tickets at twenty dollars each, the lucky drawer to receive his girl Amelia, thirteen years old.[21]

[Footnote 19: Charleston, Md., _Telegraph_, Nov. 7, 1828.]

[Footnote 20: MSS. in the New York Public Library, MSS. division, filed under "slavery."]

[Footnote 21: _Louisiana Courier_ (New Orleans), Aug. 17, 1819.]

The long distance trade, though open to any who would engage in it, appears to have been conducted mainly by firms plying it steadily. Each of these would have an a.s.sembling headquarters with field agents collecting slaves for it, one or more vessels perhaps for the coastwise traffic, and a selling agency at one of the centers of slave demand. The methods followed by some of the purchasing agents, and the local esteem in which they were held, may be gathered by an item written in 1818 at Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley: "Several wretches, whose hearts must be as black as the skins of the unfortunate beings who const.i.tute their inhuman traffic, have for several days been impudently prowling about the streets of this place with labels on their hats exhibiting in conspicuous characters the words 'Cash for negroes,'"[22] That this repugnance was genuine enough to cause local sellers to make large concessions in price in order to keep faithful servants out of the hands of the long-distance traders is evidenced by the following report in 1824 from Hillsborough on the eastern sh.o.r.e of Maryland: "Slaves in this county, and I believe generally on this sh.o.r.e, have always had two prices, viz. a neighbourhood or domestic and a foreign or Southern price. The domestic price has generally been about a third less than the foreign, and sometimes the difference amounts to one half."[23]

[Footnote 22: _Virginia Northwestern Gazette_, Aug. 15, 1818.]

[Footnote 23: _American Historical Review_, XIX, 818.]

The slaves of whom their masters were most eager to be rid were the indolent, the unruly, and those under suspicion. A Creole settler at Mobile wrote in 1748, for example, to a friend living on the Mississippi: "I am sending you l'Eveille and his wife, whom I beg you to sell for me at the best price to be had. If however they will not bring 1,500 francs each, please keep them on your land and make them work. What makes me sell them is that l'Eveille is accused of being the head of a plot of some thirty Mobile slaves to run away. He stoutly denies this; but since there is rarely smoke without fire I think it well to take the precaution."[24] The converse of this is a laconic advertis.e.m.e.nt at Charleston in 1800: "Wanted to purchase one or two negro men whose characters will not be required."[25] It is probable that offers were not lacking in response.

[Footnote 24: MS. in private possession, here translated from the French.]

[Footnote 25: Charleston _City Gazette_, Jan. 8, 1800.]

Some of the slaves dealt in were actually convicted felons sold by the states in which their crimes had been committed. The purchasers of these were generally required to give bond to transport them beyond the limits of the United States; but some of the traders broke their pledges on the chance that their breaches would not be discovered. One of these, a certain W.H. Williams, when found offering his outlawed merchandize of twenty-four convict slaves at New Orleans in 1841, was prosecuted and convicted. His penalty included the forfeiture of the twenty-four slaves, a fine of $500 to the state of Louisiana for each of the felons introduced, and the forfeiture to the state of Virginia of his bond in the amount of $1,000 per slave. The total was reckoned at $48,000.[26]

[Footnote 26: _Niles' Register_, LX, 189, quoting the New Orleans _Picayune_, May 2, 1841.]

The slaves whom the dealers preferred to buy for distant sale were "likely negroes from ten to thirty years old."[27] Faithfulness and skill in husbandry were of minor importance, for the trader could give little proof of them to his patrons. Demonstrable talents in artisanry would of course enhance a man's value; and unusual good looks on the part of a young woman might stimulate the bidding of men interested in concubinage. Episodes of the latter sort were occasionally reported; but in at least one instance inquiry on the spot showed that s.e.x was not involved. This was the case of the girl Sarah, who was sold to the highest bidder on the auction block in the rotunda of the St. Louis Hotel at New Orleans in 1841 at a price of eight thousand dollars. The onlookers were set agog, but a newspaper man promptly found that the sale had been made as a mere form in the course of litigation and that the bidding bore no relation to the money which was to change hands.[28] Among the thousands of bills of sale which the present writer has scanned, in every quarter of the South, many have borne record of exceptional prices for men, mostly artisans and "drivers"; but the few women who brought unusually high prices were described in virtually every case as fine seamstresses, parlor maids, laundresses, hotel cooks, and the like. Another indication against the multiplicity of purchases for concubinage is that the great majority of the women listed in these records were bought in family groups. Concubinage itself was fairly frequent, particularly in southern Louisiana; but no frequency of purchases for it as a predominant purpose can be demonstrated from authentic records.