THE

DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE

OF THE

SOUTHERN STATES

BY

WINFIELD H. COLLINS, M.A.

Professor of History and English in Claremont College.

BROADWAY PUBLISHING
COMPANY :: AT 835
BROADWAY NEW YORK

Copyrighted, in 1904,

BY

WINFIELD H. COLLINS, M.A.

All Rights Reserved.

TO

EDWARD G. BOURNE, Ph.D.,

Professor of American History, Yale University,

AND TO

THOMAS H. LEWIS, D.D.,

President of Western Maryland College,

THIS BOOK

IS INSCRIBED

BY THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

When I began the study of the Domestic Slave Trade of the Southern States I had no idea of the conclusions as herein found. Especially is this true of Chapters III. and IV. I have spared no pains to be accurate in all statements of fact.

The material for this work was collected in the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut, and in the Congressional Library at Washington. The sources used are to be found in the appended bibliography. The most helpful were books of travel, newspapers and periodicals, Statistics of Southern States and the United States Census Reports.

W.H. Collins.
Claremont College,
Hickory, N.C.
February 22, 1904.

CONTENTS

THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.

[CHAPTER I.]

A SKETCH OF THE RISE OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN AFRICAN STATES AND OF THE FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.

It is not our intention nor is it within our province to enter into details concerning the foreign slave trade. It seems, however, that a brief account is necessary as introductory to the subject of the Domestic Slave Trade.

The rise in Europe of the traffic in slaves from Africa was an incident in the commercial expansion of Portugal. It was coeval and almost coextensive with the development of commerce, and followed in the wake of discovery and colonization.

The first name connected with it is that of Antonio Gonçalvez, who was a marine under Prince Henry the Navigator. In 1441 he was sent to Cape Bojador to get a vessel load of "sea-wolves" skins. He signalized his voyage by the capture of some Moors whom he carried to Portugal. In 1442 these Moors promised black slaves as a ransom for themselves. Prince Henry approved of this exchange and Gonçalvez took the captives home and received, among other things, ten black slaves in exchange for two of them. The king justified his act on the ground that the negroes might be converted to the Christian religion, but the Moors could not.[1] Two years later the Company of Lagos chartered by the king, and engaged in exploration on the coast of Africa, imported about two hundred slaves from the islands of Nar and Tidar.[2] "This year (1444) Europe may be said to have made a distinct beginning in the slave trade, henceforth to spread on all sides like the waves [in] stirred up water, and not like them to become fainter and fainter as the circles widen."[3]

After the discovery of America, the islands which became known as the Spanish West Indies were speedily colonized, and the inefficiency of the Indian as a laborer in the mines there soon led to the substitution of the negro. As early as 1502 a few were employed, and in 1517 Charles V. granted a patent to certain traders for the exclusive supply of 4,000 negroes annually to the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica and Porto Rico.[4]

So far as known John Hawkins was the first Englishman to engage in the slave traffic. He left England for Sierra Leone with three ships and a hundred men in 1562, and having secured three hundred negroes he proceeded to Hispaniola where he disposed of them, and having had a very profitable voyage, he returned to England in 1563. This appears to have excited the avarice of the British Government. The next year Hawkins was appointed to the command of one of the Queen's ships and proceeded to Africa where in company with several others, it appears, he engaged in the slave traffic.[5]

In 1624 France began the slave trade and later Holland, Denmark, New England and other English colonies, though the leader in the trade and the last to abandon it was Great Britain.[6]

The first slaves introduced into any of the English continental colonies was in 1619 about the last of August when a piratical Dutch frigate, manned chiefly by English, stopped at Jamestown, Virginia, and sold the colonists twenty negroes.[7] Even for a long while after this, it seems, importation of negroes was merely of an occasional or incidental nature. Indeed, in 1648 only three hundred negroes were to be found in Virginia.[8] However, several shiploads were brought in between 1664 and 1671, and at the latter date Virginia had two thousand slaves.[9] During the latter part of the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century the importation of negroes gradually increased. In 1705, eighteen hundred negroes were brought in and in 1715 Virginia had twenty-three thousand. By 1723 they were being imported into this colony at the rate of fifteen hundred or sixteen hundred a year.[10]

In the eighteenth century Virginia sought from time to time to hinder the introduction of slaves by placing heavy duties on them. Indeed, from 1732 until the Revolution there were only about six months in which slaves could be brought into Virginia free of duty.[11] Nevertheless, in 1776 Virginia had 165,000 slaves.[12]

Though all the other colonies imported slaves more or less during the same period, yet with the possible exception of South Carolina they fell far short of the number imported by Virginia.

In November 1708, Governor Seymour of Maryland, writing to the English Board of Trade, stated that 2,290 negroes were imported into that colony from midsummer 1698 to Christmas 1707. He reported the trade to be running very high, six or seven hundred having been imported during the year. In 1712 there were 8,330 negroes in Maryland.[13] During about the same time (midsummer 1699 to October 1708) Virginia imported 6,607[14] while a northern colony, New Jersey, imported only one hundred and fifteen from 1698 to 1726.[15]

Du Bois says that South Carolina received about three thousand slaves a year from 1733 to 1766.[16] She had forty thousand in 1740.[17]

In 1700 North Carolina had eleven hundred, 1732 six thousand,[18] and in 1764 about thirty thousand.[19]

Until near the beginning of the eighteenth century it was rare that the English continental colonies received a shipload of slaves direct from Africa, and even these were usually brought in by some unlicensed "interloper." It is very probable that most of the negroes imported before this time were from Barbados, Jamaica and other West India Islands.[20] But by the beginning of the eighteenth century it appears that slaves were being imported more rapidly. After the Assiento,[21] in 1713, England became a great carrier of slaves and so continued until the Revolution.[22] The effect of this was very sensibly felt by the colonies.

Even in the latter part of the seventeenth century some of the colonies began to show their dislike by levying duties on further importation. In the eighteenth century the colonial opposition to the importation of slaves, arising probably from a fear of insurrection, became much more pronounced. Heavy restrictions in the form of duties were laid upon the trade. In some cases these were so heavy as would seem to amount to total prohibition.[23] But the efforts on the part of the colonies to restrict the trade were frowned upon and often disallowed by the British Government.[24]

In 1754 the instructions to Governor Dobbs, of North Carolina, were: "Whereas, acts have been passed in some of our plantations in America for laying duties on the importation and exportation of negroes to the great discouragement of the Merchants trading thither from the coast of Africa, ... it is our will and pleasure that you do not give your assent to or pass any law imposing duties upon negroes imported into our Province of North Carolina."[25]

The colonies considered the slave trade so important to Great Britain that at the dawn of the Revolution some of them appear to have had hopes of bringing her to terms by refusing to import any more slaves.[26]

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence as submitted by Jefferson, the king of Great Britain is arraigned "for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."[27]

It has been estimated that in the year of the Declaration the whole number of slaves in the thirteen colonies was 502,132, apportioned as follows: Massachusetts, 3,500; Rhode Island, 4,376; Connecticut, 6,000; New Hampshire, 627; New York, 15,000; New Jersey, 7,600; Pennsylvania, 10,000; Delaware, 9,000; Maryland, 80,000; Georgia, 16,000; North Carolina, 75,000; South Carolina, 110,000; Virginia, 165,000.[28]

Two years after this, in 1778, Virginia took the lead against the introduction of slaves by passing a law prohibiting importation either by land or sea. This law made an exception of travellers and immigrants.[29] Other States soon followed suit, passing laws to restrict it temporarily or at specified places.[30] By 1803 all the States and territories had laws in force prohibiting the importation of slaves from abroad.[31] It must not be supposed, however, that these were entirely effective. Indeed, the statement was made in Congress Feb. 14, 1804, that in the preceding twelve months "twenty thousand" enslaved negroes had been transported from Guinea, and by smuggling, added to the plantation stock of Georgia and South Carolina.[32]

In 1798 an act of Congress establishing the territory of Mississippi provided that no slave should be brought within its limits from without the United States.[33] In 1804, when Louisiana was erected into the territories of Louisiana and Orleans the provision was made that only slaves which had been imported before May 1, 1798, might be introduced into the territories and these must be the bona fide property of actual settlers.[34]

Upon the petition of the inhabitants for the removal of the restrictions, a bill was introduced in Congress, of which Du Bois says: "By dexterous wording, this bill, which became a law March 2, 1805, swept away all restrictions upon the slave trade except that relating to foreign ports, and left even this provision so ambiguous that later by judicial interpretations of the law, the foreign slave trade was allowed at least for a time."[35]

South Carolina had even before this time (December 17, 1803), repealed her law against the importation of slaves from Africa.[36] The trade was thus open through this State for four years, during which time 39,075 slaves were imported through Charleston[37] alone.

The action of South Carolina in opening the slave trade forced the question upon the attention of Congress. During 1805-6 it was much discussed[38] but it was not until March 2, 1807, that a bill was passed against it. This prohibited the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808, under penalty of imprisonment for not less than five nor more than ten years, and a fine of not less than $5,000 nor more than $10,000.[39]

This law was not entirely effective. In 1810 the Secretary of the Navy writing to Charleston, South Carolina, says: "I hear not without great concern, that the law prohibiting the importation of slaves has been violated in frequent instances near St. Mary's."[40]

Drake, a slave smuggler, says, that during the war of 1812 the business of smuggling slaves through Florida into the United States was a lively one.[41]

Vincent Nolte says that in 1813 "pirates captured Spanish and other slave ships on the high seas and established their main depot and rendezvous on the island of Barataria lying near the coast adjacent to New Orleans. This place was visited by the sugar planters, chiefly of French origin, who bought up the stolen slaves at from $150 to $200 per head when they could not have procured as good stock in the city for less than $600 or $700. These were then conveyed to the different plantations, through the innumerable creeks called bayous, that communicate with each other by manifold little branches."[42]

In 1817-1819 slaves were very high and in great demand in the South. As a consequence great numbers of them were smuggled in at various places. The evidence of this is quite convincing.

Amelia Island and the town of St. Mary's became notorious as two of the principal rendezvous of smugglers. A writer in "Niles' Register" in 1818 says that a regular chain of posts was established from the head of St. Mary's river to the upper country, and through the Indian nation by means of which slaves are hurried to every part of the country. The woodmen along the river side rode like so many Arabs loaded with slaves ready for market. When ready to form a caravan, an Indian alarm was created that the woods might be less frequented, and if pursued in Georgia they escaped to Florida.[43]

Mr. M'Intosh, Collector of the Port of Darien, in a letter in 1818, says: "I am in possession of undoubted information that African and West Indian negroes are almost daily illicitly introduced into Georgia, for sale or settlement, or passing through it to the territories of the United States."[44]

In 1817 it was reported to the Secretary of the Navy that "most of the goods carried to Galveston are introduced into the United States, the most bulky and least valuable regularly through the custom house; the most valuable and the slaves are smuggled in through the numerous inlets to the westward where the people are but too much disposed to render them every possible assistance. Several hundred slaves are now at Galveston."[45]

"Niles' Register," in 1818, quoting from the "Democrat Press," has a very interesting account of how the law against the importation of slaves was evaded at New Orleans: An agent would be sent to the West Indies and even to Africa to purchase a cargo of slaves. On the return when the slave ship got near Balize the agent would leave her, go in haste to New Orleans and inform the proper authorities that a certain vessel had come into the Mississippi, said to be bound for New Orleans and having on board a certain number of negroes contrary to the law of the United States. The vessel and cargo would be libelled and the slaves sold at public auction. One half of the purchase money would go to the informer and the other to the United States.[46] The informer and agent was the same man and a partner in the transaction. This was a profitable business and about ten thousand slaves a year are said to have been thus introduced.[47]

It is quite evident that the illicit slave trade at this time was very great. In 1819 Mr. Middleton, of South Carolina, said in Congress that in his opinion thirteen thousand Africans were annually smuggled into the United States, and Mr. Wright, of Virginia, estimated the number at fifteen thousand.[48]

In 1818, 1819 and 1820 Congress passed acts to supplement and render more effective the act of 1807.[49] Du Bois says that for a decade after 1825 there appears little positive evidence of a large illicit importation, but thinks notwithstanding that slaves were largely imported.[50]

Captain J.E. Alexander in a book published in 1833 says that he was assured by a planter of forty years' standing that persons in New Orleans were connected with slave traders in Cuba, and that at certain seasons of the year they would go up the Mississippi River and meet slave ships off the coast. They would relieve these of their cargoes, return to the main stream of the river, drop down in flat boats and dispose of the negroes to those who wished them.[51] Thomas Powell Buxton makes the statement, upon what he claims to be high authority, that fifteen thousand negroes were imported into Texas from Africa in one year, about 1838.[52]

The "Liberator" quoting the "Maryland Colonization Herald," says a writer in that paper was assured, in 1838, by Pedro Blanco, one of the largest slave traders on the coast of Africa, that for the preceding forty years the United States had been his best market through the west end of Cuba and Texas.[53]

"Between 1847 and 1853," says Du Bois, "the slave smuggler Drake had a slave depot in the Gulf, where sometimes as many as sixteen hundred negroes were on hand, and the owners were continually importing and shipping."

Drake himself says: "Our island was visited almost weekly by agents from Cuba, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and New Orleans, ... the seasoned and instructed slaves were taken to Texas or Florida, overland, and to Cuba, in sailing boats. As no squad contained more than half a dozen, no difficulty was found in posting them to the United States, without discovery, and generally without suspicion.... The Bay Island plantation sent ventures weekly to the Florida Keys. Slaves were taken into the great American swamps, and there kept till wanted for market. Hundreds were sold as runaways from the Florida wilderness. We had agents in every slave State, and our coasters were built in Maine and came out with lumber. I could tell curious stories ... of this business of smuggling Bozal negroes into the United States. It is growing more profitable every year, and if you should hang all the Yankee merchants engaged in it, hundreds would fill their places."[54]

Owing to the increasing demand, and to the high price of slaves from 1845 to 1860, and to the fact that the Southern people were becoming more and more favorable to the reopening of the African slave trade, thus making it easier to practice smuggling successfully, we have no reason to doubt the truth of these accounts of this illicit traffic.

Stephen A. Douglas said in 1859 it was his confident opinion that more than fifteen thousand slaves had been imported in the preceding year, and that the trade had been carried on extensively for a long while.[55] About 1860 it was stated that twenty large cities and towns in the South were depots for African slaves and sixty or seventy cargoes of slaves had been introduced in the preceding eighteen months.[56] It was estimated in 1860 that eighty-five vessels which had been fitted out from New York City during eighteen months of 1859 and 1860, would introduce from thirty thousand to sixty thousand annually.[57]

From what has been said it seems to us certain that at least 270,000 slaves were introduced into the United States from 1808 to 1860 inclusive.[58] These we would distribute as follows: Between 1808 and 1820, sixty thousand; 1820 to 1830, fifty thousand; 1830 to 1840, forty thousand; 1840 to 1850, fifty thousand and from 1850 to 1860 seventy thousand. We consider these very moderate and even low estimates.

It will be seen later that these figures are of prime importance in accounting for the presence of certain slaves in the States of the extreme South.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A. Helps: The Spanish Conquest of America, Vol. I., 30-32.

[2] Ibid., 35-36.

[3] Helps: Sp. Con. of Am., Vol. I., 40.

[4] Edwards: British West Indies, Vol. II., 44. Brock: Va. Hist. So. Collection, Vol. VI., 2.

[5] Edwards: British West Indies, Vol. II., 47-8.

[6] Ballaugh: Hist. of Slavery in Va., p. 4.

[7] John Smith: Hist. of Va., Vol. II., 39. Ballaugh: Hist. of Slavery in Va., pp. 8-9. There has been some misunderstanding as to the date, but Ballaugh makes it clear that 1619 is correct.

[8] Brock: Va. Hist. So. Coll., VI., 9. Ballaugh: Hist. Sl. in Va., p. 9.

[9] Hening: States at Large, Vol. II., 515.

[10] Ballaugh: Hist. Sl. in Va., pp. 10-14.

[11] Ibid., p. 19.

[12] De Bow: Industrial Resources of the South, Vol. III., 130.

[13] Scharf: Hist. of Md., Vol. I., 376-7.

[14] N.C. Colonial Records, Vol. I., 693.

[15] N.J. Archives, Vol. V., 152.

[16] Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 5.

[17] M'Call: Hist. of Ga., II., 125.

[18] N.C. Colonial Records, Vol. II., p. 17.

[19] Bassett: Slavery and Servitude in N.C., pages 20-22. In J.H.U. Studies, Vol. XIV.

[20] Scharf: Hist. of Md., Vol. I., 376-7. N.C. Colonial Records, Vol. I., 693.

[21] The Assiento was a treaty between England and Spain, by which Spain granted England a monopoly of the Spanish colonial slave trade for thirty years. Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 3.

[22] Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 4-6.

[23] Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, Appendix A.

[24] Ibid., pp. 4-5.

[25] N.C. Col. Rec., Vol. V., 1118.

[26] Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, pp. 42-8.

[27] Ford: Jefferson's Works, Vol. II., 23.

[28] De Bow's: Industrial Resources, Vol. III., 130. Liberator: Feb. 23, 1849.

[29] Hening; Statutes at Large, Vol. IX., p. 471.

[30] Chap. on Laws, C. VII., this book. Du Bois: Suppres. Sl. Trade, Appendices A. and B.

[31] Ibid. Schouler: Hist. U.S., Vol. II., p. 56.

Chap. VII. on Laws, this volume.

[32] Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 1st Sess., 1000.

[33] Poore: Fed. and State Constitutions, Part 2, 1050.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, pp. 89-90.

[36] McCord: S.C. Statutes at Large, Vol. VII., p. 449. Du Bois: p. 240.

[37] Annals of Congress, 16 Con., 2nd Sess., p. 77.

[38] Du Bois: pp. 91-3.

[39] Annals of Cong., 9 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix 1266-72.

[40] House Doc., 15 Cong., 2 Sess., IV., No. 84, p. 5.

[41] Drake: Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, 51, quoted by Du Bois, p. 11.

[42] Vincent Nolte: Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres, p. 189.

[43] Niles' Reg., May 2, 1818.

[44] State Papers, 1st Sess., 16th Cong., Vol. 3, H. Doc. 42.

[45] Niles' Reg., Jan. 22, 1820.

[46] Ibid., Dec. 12, 1818, Louisiana had a law which provided that slaves imported contrary to Act of Congress, March 2, 1807, should be seized and sold for benefit of the State. (Hurd, Vol. II., p. 159.) But the whole story is denied by another writer. (Niles' Reg., Dec. 12, 1818.)

[47] Niles' Reg., Dec. 12, 1818.

[48] Wm. Jay: Miscell. Writings on Slavery, p. 277.

[49] Du Bois: Pp. 118-122.

[50] Ibid., p. 128.

[51] Alexander: Transatlantic Sketches, p. 230.

[52] Buxton: The African Slave Trade, p. 44.

[53] Liberator: Aug. 18, 1854.

[54] Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, p. 98. Quoted by Du Bois, p. 166.

[55] 27 Report Am. Anti-Slavery So., p. 20. Du Bois: P. 181.

[56] 27 Report Am. Anti-Sl. So., p. 21. Du Bois, p. 182.

[57] J.J. Lalor: Cyclopedia, Vol. III., p. 733.

[58] This is little more than the estimate which Du Bois made before he wrote his book, "Suppression of the Slave Trade." "From 1807 to 1862 there were annually introduced into the United States from 1,000 to 15,000 Africans, and that the total number thus brought in in contravention alike of humanity and law was not less than 250,000." "Enforcement of Slave Trade Laws," in the Annual Report of the Am. Hist. Assoc. for the year 1891, p. 173. The estimate of 270,000 in the text was made after careful study, and before the writer knew of Du Bois' estimate.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE CAUSES OF THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE.

The prohibition of the foreign slave trade by the States and the Federal Government is the first thing to be considered in connection with the development of the internal slave trade. Although before 1808 all the States had passed laws to prohibit the introduction of slaves from without the United States, yet each State had the power to reopen the trade at will. South Carolina, perhaps, thinking it might be for the interest of the State, opened the foreign trade in 1803.[59] During the four years following so many slaves were imported that the market in the United States became overstocked and many of the negroes were sent to the West Indies for sale.[60] Had the States retained the power to import, it is not probable that the domestic trade would ever have assumed any great importance. It is not likely that the people of the South and West would have paid high prices for the negroes from the border States when they could have been had from abroad for so much less.

The great profits, too, which induced men to carry on the domestic trade would have been wanting. Assuming this, then, the consequent low price of slaves in the border slave States, added to the disinclination of many in these States to make merchandise of the negro, might have led, as the negroes increased and became a burden upon their masters, to gradual emancipation.

In 1807, however, when Congress exercised its constitutional right and prohibited the importation of slaves from without the United States after January 1, 1808, the right of the individual States to import slaves from foreign countries was lost.

It is interesting to note that only a few years before the passage of the Federal non-importation-slave act the vast territory of Louisiana had been purchased from France. The acquisition of this territory had a wonderful influence upon the development and continuance of the internal slave trade.

Of much less influence, and we might even say, of comparative insignificance, was the Florida cession of 1819. In a very short time this fertile region of the Louisiana purchase began to attract great numbers of immigrants who, it seems, often brought their slaves with them. But there were many who still had to be supplied.[61] To meet this demand' recourse was had, principally, to the exhausted plantations of Virginia and Maryland.[62]

Tobacco, which had been a great agricultural staple in these States, had worn out the land. The price of tobacco, too, from about 1818 was very low and continued so until about 1840.[63] At the same time new States such as Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, the Carolinas and Georgia, had become great tobacco States. Such quantities came to be raised as to make the culture very unprofitable in Virginia and Maryland.[64] The condition with respect to this section could be no better illustrated than by a quotation from a speech of Thomas Marshall in the Virginia House of Delegates, January 20, 1832:

"Mr. Taylor, of Carolina," he says, "had understood that 60,000 hogsheads of tobacco were exported from Virginia, when the whole population did not exceed 150,000. Had the fertility of the country by possibility remained undiminished, Virginia ought in 1810 to have exported 240,000 hogsheads, or their equivalent in other produce, and at present nearly double that. Thus the agricultural exports of Virginia in 1810 would, at the estimated prices of the Custom House at that time, have been seventeen millions of dollars and now at least thirty-four, while it is known that they are not of late years greater than from three to five millions....

"The fact that the whole agricultural products of the State at present, do not exceed in value the exports eighty or ninety years ago, when it contained not a sixth of the population, and when not a third of the surface of that State (at present Virginia) was at all occupied, is, however, a striking proof of the decline of its agriculture. What is now the productive value of an estate of land and negroes in Virginia? We state as the result of extensive inquiry, embracing the last fifteen, years, that a very great proportion of the larger plantations, with from fifty to one hundred slaves, actually bring their proprietors in debt at the end of a short term of years, notwithstanding what would once in Virginia have been deemed very sheer economy, that much the larger part of the considerable landholders are content, if they barely meet their plantation expenses without a loss of capital; and that of those who make any profit, it will be none but rare instances, average more than one and a half per cent. on the capital invested. The case is not materially varied with the smaller proprietors. Mr. Randolph, of Roanoke, whose sayings have so generally the raciness and the truth of proverbs, has repeatedly said in Congress, that the time was coming when the masters would run away from the slaves and be advertised by them in the public papers."[65]

It seems that agriculture had taken a new start about 1816, probably owing to the fact that tobacco was very high, being from 8 to 15 cents per pound,[66] for Colonel Mercer in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829 said that in 1817 the lands of Virginia were valued at $206,000,000 and that negroes averaged $300 each, while by 1829 lands had decreased in value to $80,000,000 or $90,000,000 and negroes to $150 each.[67] But while agriculture was in such a discouraging condition in the worn out States, Louisiana and other States of the Southwest were being opened up and were looked on as the land of promise. Immigrants to that favored section wrote glowing accounts of the fertility of the country and of the delightful climate. An emigrant from Maryland writes from Louisiana in 1817:

"Do not the climate, the soil and productions of this country furnish allurements to the application of your negroes on our lands? In your States a planter, with ten negroes, with difficulty supports a family genteelly; here well managed, they would be a fortune to him. With you the seasons are so irregular your crops often fail; here the crops are certain, and want of the necessaries of life, never for a moment causes the heart to ache—abundance spreads the table of the poor man and contentment smiles on every countenance."[68]

In marked contrast to the unprofitableness of slave labor in the older slave States was their immense profit when employed on the fresh lands of the Southwest. Some planters in this section had plantations thousands of acres in extent.[69] To cultivate them great numbers of slaves were required. If the crop were cotton one negro was needed for every three acres and these would yield cotton to the value of $240 to $260. The master realized upon each negro employed at least $200 annually.[70] The income of some of these plantations was immense. It was not uncommon for a planter in Mississippi and Louisiana to have an income of $30,000, and some of them even $80,000 to $120,000 (1820).[71]

The enormous profits caused slaves to be very high in this section and in great demand. There were only two possible sources of supply:—first, the illicit traffic already spoken of; second, the domestic slave trade. A good negro from twenty to thirty years of age would command from $800 to $1,200.[72] Indeed, it is stated that at one time during this early period they sold for as much as $2,000.[73] This fact in connection with the fact that in 1817 the average price of a negro in Virginia was only $300, and the depreciation by 1829 to $150, gives us the reason for the rise of the domestic slave trade. It was over and again stated in the Virginia Legislature of 1832 that the value of negroes in Virginia was regulated not by their profitableness at home but by the Southwestern demand.[74] The great difference in the price of slaves in the buying States and the selling States was an inducement to a certain class of men to engage in the business of buying them up and carrying them South. The profits were from one-third to one-half on an average after expenses were paid.[75] Slave traders soon got rich. Williams, a Washington dealer, boasted in 1850 that he made $30,000 in a few months.[76] It is said the firm of Franklin & Armfield, of Alexandria, made $33,000 in 1829.[77] In 1834 Armfield, of this same firm, was reputed to be worth nearly $500,000 which he had accumulated in the business.[78] Ingraham tells of a man who had amassed more than a million dollars in this traffic.[79] More instances might be given but this is enough to show that the traffic was profitable.

The cultivation of rice[80] and sugar, especially sugar, used up slaves rapidly. As a consequence slaves were in demand in the rice and sugar sections, not only because of the expansion of these industries, but to take the place of those that died. In 1829 the statement was made in a report of the Agricultural Society of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that the annual loss of life on well conducted sugar plantations was two and one-half per cent. more than the annual increase. In 1830, the Hon. J.L. Johnson in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury gave evidence of a thorough study of the subject and arrived at the same conclusion.[81]

We come now to consider the one thing, the prime factor, which brought about the wonderful agricultural prosperity of the Southwest—cotton. Sugar and rice could only be grown in certain limited sections. Rice principally in South Carolina and sugar in Louisiana; but the cotton field came to cover the larger part of nine great States.

Until toward the end of the eighteenth century the production of cotton in this country was very small. In 1793, however, Eli Whitney invented his machine for separating the seed from the cotton. This soon revolutionized the industry. While the cotton crop of the United States in 1793 was only 5,000,000 pounds, by 1808 it had increased to 80,000,000, and remained about the same or rather declined during the war of 1812, but the very year peace was established its production went up to 100,000,000 pounds, and the year following (1816) to 125,000,000. By 1834 it had grown to 460,000,000.[82] During the whole of this period, with slight fluctuations, cotton continued high, but after 1835 it began to decline and reached low-water mark at the average price of 5¾ cents per pound in 1845, which was scarcely the cost of production.[83] However, the crop of 1839 according to the census reports was 790,479,275 pounds, nearly double the crop of the five years previous. During the next decade though the price went up after 1845[84] the crop increased less than 200,000,000 pounds being only 987,637,200 in 1849, but during the following ten years it more than doubled, being 2,397,238,140 pounds in 1859.[85] Of this enormous crop the four States of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia produced more than two-thirds, while Virginia contributed about 1,400.[86] But Virginia and North Carolina in 1801 had produced more than two-fifths of the cotton raised in the country. In 1826 when, according to the official reports they reached their greatest production, Virginia grew 25,000,000 pounds and North Carolina 18,000,000, or nearly five times as much as in 1801, yet this proportion had fallen to about one-seventh. Eight years afterward Virginia's crop had fallen to 10,000,000 pounds and North Carolina's to 9,500,000,[87] and their production continued to decline.[88] Hammond says that "the higher cost of raising cotton in the more northern latitudes, and the uncertainty of the plant reaching maturity before the arrival of the frosts, prevented the rapid growth of cotton culture in these States after 1830 which took place elsewhere, especially as the continual decline in the price of the staple only emphasized the disadvantages under which the planters of these States labored."[89]

But while decline was noticeable in the Northern States, the States at the Southwest were going ahead by leaps and bounds. The same year (1843) Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, from which no cotton had been reported in 1801, produced together 232,000,000 pounds, while South Carolina increased its crops from 2,000,000 to 65,500,000 and Georgia from 10,000,000 to 75,000,000 pounds during the same time.[90]

As the cotton field extended of course the demand for labor increased and that labor was necessarily negro slave labor, for it was thought that the white man could not endure work under a tropical sun, while the organism of the negro was especially adapted to it.[91] As a consequence negroes were secured from every possible source.

In short, negroes and cotton soon came to be inseparably associated. The amount of cotton that could be raised depended upon the number of negroes to be secured to work it. The value of a negro was measured by his usefulness in the cotton field.[92] De Bow estimated that in 1850 out of the 2,500,000 slaves in the Southern States about 1,800,000[93] of them, or nearly three-fourths were engaged in the cotton industry, leaving for all other purposes only about 700,000, or about the same number as there was in the whole United States in 1790, at which time the production of cotton was only 1,500,000 pounds.[94] Thus it is seen that while cotton demanded all the increase of slaves from whatever source from that time forward all other things merely held their own. However, if we subtract the number engaged in the sugar industry, which was 150,000[95] in 1850 for the reason that it was a new crop developed during the early part of the century,[96] it is noticed that other things lost. From this we conclude it was only natural that the surplus slave population of the older slave States where it was useless was to be drained off to the cotton States. Some of the Southern papers, notably the "Richmond Enquirer," over and again called attention to the relation of cotton and negroes. In 1859 it says:

"The price of cotton it is well known pretty much regulates the price of slaves in the South, and a bale of cotton and a 'likely nigger' are about well balanced in the scale of pecuniary appreciation."[97]

FOOTNOTES:

[59] McCord: S.C. Statutes at Large, Vol. VII., p. 449.

[60] Annals of Congress, 16 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 77.

[61] (Ingraham): The Southwest, Vol. II., p. 223.

[62] Alexander: Transatlantic Sketches, p. 250. Basil Hall: Travels in N. Am., Vol. II., p. 217.

[63] Hunt's: Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473.

[64] Speech of Thomas Marshall in Va., H. Del., 1832. Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 2, 1832.

[65] Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 2, 1832.

[66] Hunt's: Merchants' Magazine, VI., p. 473.

[67] Proceedings and Debate of the Va. St. Con. Con., 1829-30, p. 178.

[68] Niles' Reg., Sept. 13, 1817; for another such letter see Ibid., October 18, 1817.

[69] Smedes: Memorials of a Southern Planter, p. 47.

[70] Christian Scutz: Travels on an Inland Voyage, Vol. II., p. 186.

David Blowe: Geographical, Commercial and Agricultural View of U.S., p. 618.

[71] David Blowe: Geographical, Commercial and Agricultural View of U.S. of Am., p. 643. (1820?)

[72] Ibid., p. 618.

[73] Claiborne: Miss. as a Province, Territory and State, Vol. I., p. 144.

[74] Mr. Gholson in Va. Leg. Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 24, 1832. Mr. Goode, ibid., Jan. 19, 1832.

[75] (Ingraham): The Southwest, Vol. 4, p. 234.

Vigne: Six Months in Am., p. 117.

Alexander: Transatlantic Sketches, p. 230.

[76] Liberator, Sept. 6, 1850.

[77] Mary Tremain: Slavery in D.C., p. 50.

[78] Abdy: Journal of a Residence and Tour in the U.S., Vol. II., p. 180.

[79] (Ingraham): The Southwest. Vol. II., p. 245.

[80] Basil Hall: Travels in North America, 218-223.

[81] Stearns: Notes on Uncle Tom's Cabin, 174-5.

[82] Woodbury's Report: 24th Cong., 1st Sess. Ex. Doc. 146, p. 7.

[83] De Bow's Review: Vol. XXIII., p. 475.

[84] Hammond: Cotton Ind., Ap. 1.

[85] Census of 1890. Statistics of Agri., p. 42.

[86] Ibid.

[87] Woodbury's Report, p. 13.

[88] Census, 1890. Statistics of Agri., p. 42.

[89] Hammond: The Cotton Industry, p. 49.

[90] Woodbury's Report, p. 13.

[91] Van Enrie: Negroes and Negro Slavery, p. 171.

Parkinson: Tour in America, Vol. II., p. 421.

[92] Olmsted: Cotton Kingdom. Vol. I., 15-16. Ibid.: Seaboard Slave States, p. 278.

[93] De Bow: Compendium, 7th Census, p. 94.

[94] Woodbury's Report, p. 7.

[95] De Bow: Compendium, 7th Census, p. 94.

[96] Ibid.: Industrial Resources, Vol. III., p. 275.

[97] Richmond Enquirer, July 29, 1859.

[CHAPTER III.]

THE AMOUNT AND EXTENT OF THE TRADE.

We have already discussed the causes of the domestic slave trade. In this chapter it is our purpose, chiefly, to consider its amount and extent.

In this connection our first object will be to determine whether it was carried on as a business before 1808. It appears that there were exchanges of slaves going on among the States and territories before this time, but whether this was anything more than of an occasional or incidental nature is a question.

The statutes of some of the States give some light along this line. South Carolina in 1792 prohibited the introduction of slaves either by land or sea.[98] Delaware, however, as early as 1787, passed a law which recites that: "Sundry negroes and mulattoes, as well freeman as slaves, have been exported and sold into other States, contrary to the principles of humanity and justice, and derogatory to the honor of this State."

This law prohibited their exportation without a permit.[99] It seems to have been something more than merely incidental for it was amended in 1793, as follows:

"That from and after the first Tuesday of October next, the justice of the Court of General Quarter Sessions and Jail Delivery, or any two of them, shall have the like power to grant a licence or permit to export, sell or carry out for sale, any negro or mulatto slave from this State that five justices of the peace in open Sessions now have."[100]

We have evidence to show that, by 1802, Alexandria, in the District of Columbia, had become a sort of depot for the sale of slaves, and that men visited it from distant parts of the United States in order to purchase them.[101]

About this time slaves were in great demand and very high in Mississippi,[102] and probably, also, in the new States of Kentucky and Tennessee.[103] However, it is not to be supposed that the great increase of the slave population in these sections before 1815 was due, to any great extent, to the domestic slave trade. There were five causes which may be assigned for this increase, of which the domestic trade was, probably, among the least, if not the least. No doubt, the most important was the immigration of slave holders with their slaves.[104] This immigration was considerable: the white population of Tennessee and Kentucky nearly trebled between 1790 and 1800, and between 1800 and 1810 it about doubled, and the population of Mississippi more than quadrupled between 1800 and 1810. Slaves, also, increased in as great a ratio.[105] Second, we consider the South Carolina slave trade from 1804 to 1807 inclusive. From a speech of Mr. Smith of South were sold in the Carolinas, but that the most of Carolina in the United States Senate, December 8, 1820, we learn that only a small part of the negroes introduced in consequence of this trade them were bought by the people of the Western and Southwestern States and territories.[106] Third, was the natural increase. Fourth would be the illegal foreign slave trade,[107] and fifth is the domestic trade. It is impossible to more than approximate the relative importance of these factors.

However, it seems very unlikely that the domestic trade was of much consequence before 1815. Whatever impetus it may have received on account of the demand for slaves just prior to the South Carolina trade, must have been checked by the consequent heavy importation from abroad. For, on account of this, slaves fell in price, as it is said adults, at this time, generally sold in the Southwest at one hundred dollars each.[108]

If the domestic slave trade had assumed any importance, or even if it had been going on at all before 1815, it seems more than likely that it would have been remarked by travellers, many of whom, both English and American, visited the Southwest and other sections of the country during the period in question. But so far as we can find, none of them make any mention of it whatever.[109] The newspapers of the time, also, are silent in regard to the matter. Doubtless the rise and development of the trade was hindered or delayed by the War of 1812,[110] but almost immediately after the close of the war, it comes into notice and even prominence. In 1816 Paulding in his "Letters from the South" writes of it from personal observation, and also tells of a man who had even thus early made money in the business.[111]

At this time, indeed, conditions were very favorable to a growth of the domestic trade. The general prosperity and the high price of agricultural products, especially cotton and sugar,[112] caused a great demand for slave labor for the new and fertile lands of the South and Southwest. In 1817 and 1818 the buying up of negroes for these markets was fast becoming a regular business, and it was a very common thing to see gangs of them chained and marching toward the South.[113] They were collected from various places by dealers and shipped down the Mississippi River in flat-boats. Fourteen of these loaded with slaves for sale were seen at Natchez at once about this time.[114]

The statement was made that 8,000 slaves were carried into Georgia in 1817 from the Northern slave holding States.[115] It would seem probable that the greater part of these may have been introduced by immigrants. However, the slave trade must have been great, for on December 20, 1817, the Georgia legislature passed a law to prohibit at once the importation of slaves for sale.[116]

Between 1810 and 1820 slaves in the four States of Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana in round numbers increased from 202,000 to 332,000,[117] and in some of the other States the increase was about as great. During the same time the white population in the States named increased from 419,000 to 645,000.[118] By far the greater part of this increase took place after 1815. To prove this we will take Louisiana as an example. In 1810 she had a population of 76,500,[119] and in 1815 near the close of the year her population, according to Monette, did not exceed 90,000,[120] an increase of only 12,000; but in 1820 it amounted to 154,000, of which more than 73,000 were negro slaves.[121] It appears that the slaves in Louisiana increased only about 2,000 or 2,500 from 1810 to 1815, but between 1815 and 1820 there was an increase of about 37,000.[122] This wonderful increase in population in the West and Southwest is to be accounted for by the fact that after the close of the War of 1812 immigration again set in these directions, and, as most of the immigrants without doubt were from the older Southern States, they carried with them the slaves which they had in their native States.[123] Another source from which this region received slaves at this time was through the operation of the illicit foreign trade. It is probable that 10,000 or 15,000 a year were thus introduced.[124] It therefore seems that up to this time to the domestic trade is due probably only a minor part of the increase of the slave population of this section.

During the twenties, however, if we are to give credit to the statements of travellers, the trade reached very great proportions. Baltimore, Norfolk, Richmond, Washington and other places had already become centres. Agents were placed in these cities to attend to purchase and shipment. "And thousands and tens of thousands," such is the language of an English tourist, were purchased in Virginia and Maryland for sale in Georgia, Louisiana and other States.[125] Blane, another Englishman, who visited the United States about the same time, is more to the point.

"It is computed," he says, "that every year from ten to fifteen thousand slaves are sold from the States of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia and sent to the South."[126]

Basil Hall was informed, in 1827 or 1828, that during certain seasons of the year, "all the roads, steamboats and packets are crowded with troops of negroes on their way to the slave markets of the South.[127] Vessels, indeed, from the selling States were sometimes seen in New Orleans with as many as two hundred negroes aboard."[128]

This transportation of negroes from the border States to the South and Southwest from about 1826 to 1832 may be partly accounted for by the probable falling off in the illicit importations[129] and by the fact that cotton and tobacco, which were the staples of some of the border States, were comparatively low in price,[130] making them very unprofitable crops to cultivate in these States. The cotton raised in North Carolina and Virginia decreased almost half during this time.[131] While it appears as if the lower price of cotton merely had the effect in the new States to increase the acreage in order to make up for the deficiency in price. In the new States there was a wonderful increase in production during this period.[132] Slaves, therefore, were of much less productive value in the border States, while in the new States the demand for them was scarcely lessened.

The "New Orleans Mercantile Advertiser," of January 21, 1830, says:

"Arrivals by sea and river, within a few days, have added fearfully to the number of slaves brought to this market for sale. New Orleans is the complete mart for the slave trade—and the Mississippi is becoming a common highway for the traffic."[133]

In the summer of 1831, New Orleans imported 371 negroes in one week, nearly all of whom were from Virginia.[134]

In the same year, August 1831, an insurrection of slaves, in which a number of white people were murdered, occurred in Southampton County, Virginia.[135] This caused much excitement throughout the slave States. It opened the eyes of the people to the danger of a large slave population. It seemed, for a while, that it would have a very detrimental effect upon the domestic slave trade, for several importing States began to consider the advisability of prohibiting the further introduction of slaves. Two of the largest importing States,[136] indeed, passed such laws: Louisiana, which, in March, 1831, had repealed her law regulating the importation of slaves[137] in November of the same year, at an extra session of her legislature enacted a law against their importation for sale.[138] And, in January, 1832, Alabama followed suit.[139]

The Virginia Legislature of 1831-2, also took up the question of slavery and with open doors vigorously discussed methods of emancipation, and of getting rid of the negro population. It was recognized that the value of slaves in Virginia depended greatly upon the Southern and Western markets. It was feared that other buying States would follow the lead of Louisiana, thus cutting off the outlet of Virginia's surplus slaves, and while the whites were constantly emigrating, the rapidly increasing black population would tend to become congested in the State, producing a condition of society alarming to contemplate.[140]

But these forebodings were far from ever being realized. Indeed, even before the end of the year the conjunction of two causes produced a great demand for slaves and they were soon higher in price than they had been for years. First, planters from the cotton-growing States visited Virginia in great numbers in order to make purchases of slaves, doubtless, thinking they could buy cheaply, as it seemed that on account of the Southampton Insurrection Virginia was determined to get rid of her slaves at all hazards.[141] Second, the most important was the advance in price of cotton. This began, also, in 1832. It continued to rise for several years and by 1836 it had doubled in price,[142] while by 1839 its production, also, had nearly doubled. This increase was due almost wholly to the South and Southwest, Mississippi alone producing nearly one-fourth of the entire crop.[143]

As a consequence we should expect to note a corresponding briskness in the slave trade. Such, indeed, was the case. We have no reason to think that more slaves were ever exported to the South from the Northern slave States during any equal period of time than there were from 1832 to 1836 inclusive. Of these 1836 is easily the banner year.

In 1832 it was estimated by Prof. Dew that Virginia annually exported for sale to other States 6,000 slaves.[144] During the thirties, or even before the slave trade was carried on between the selling and buying States with about the same regularity as the exchanges of cotton, flour, sugar and rice.[145] Vessels engaged in the business advertised their accommodations. One trader, John Armfield, had three which were scheduled to leave Alexandria for New Orleans, alternately, the first and fifteenth of each month during the shipping season.[146]

That the trade had become extensive is evidenced by the newspapers. Up to 1820 it was very uncommon to find a trader's advertisement in a newspaper, but even before 1830 such advertisements had become very plentiful. One could hardly pick up a paper published in the selling States, especially those of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Virginia, without finding one or more. These advertisements often continued from month to month and from year to year.[147]

An example or two may be interesting:

"Cash for Negroes:—I wish to purchase 600 or 700 negroes for the New Orleans market, and will give more than any purchaser that is now or hereafter may come into the market." Richard C. Woolfolk.[148]

"Cash for Negroes:—We will give cash for 200 negroes between the ages of 15 and 25 years old of both sexes. Those having that kind of property for sale will find it to their interest to give us a call." Finnall and Freeman.[149]

The number of slaves currently estimated to have been transported to the South and Southwest during 1835 and 1836 almost staggers belief. The "Maryville (Tenn.) Intelligencer" made the statement in 1836 that in 1835 60,000 slaves passed through a Western town on their way to the Southern market.[150] Also, in 1836, the "Virginia (Wheeling) Times" says, intelligent men estimated the number of slaves exported from Virginia during the preceding twelve months as 120,000 of whom about two-thirds were carried there by their masters, leaving 40,000 to have been sold.[151] The "Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine," July 1837, gives the "Natchez Courier" as authority for the estimate that during 1836, 250,000 slaves were transported to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas from the older slave States.[152] A committee, in 1837, appointed by the citizens of Mobile to enquire into the cause of the prevalent financial stringency stated in their report that for the preceding four years Alabama had annually purchased from other States $10,000,000 worth of slave property.[153]

When the panic of 1837 came upon Mississippi, it was thought, it seems, to have been caused through the amount of money sent out of the State in the purchase of slaves, and Governor Lynch, upon the petition of the people, convened the legislature in extra session, and in his message to it says:

"The question which presents itself and which I submit for your deliberation [is]—whether the passage of an act prohibiting the introduction of slaves into this State as merchandise may not have a salutary effect in checking the drain of capital annually made upon us by the sale of this description of property."[154]

The panic of 1837 caused a falling off in the domestic slave trade, and the low price of cotton which continued until 1846[155] hindered its revival. The falling off in the trade is shown by the fact that the per cent. of increase in the slave population of the cotton States was scarcely half as great between 1840 and 1850 as during the previous decade.[156] The slave trade, however, seems to have become brisker in 1843, for while only 2,000 slaves are said to have been sold in Washington in 1842, in 1843, 5,000 were sold there.[157] It does not necessarily follow, however, that all these were sent South. The increased number of sales was caused by two things: the decline in the price of tobacco,[158] and the renewed activity in the sugar industry incident upon a new duty on sugar.[159] This gave rise to a demand for slave labor upon the sugar plantations of the South, but it was a very limited demand. During this period the decline in the value of slaves was great in some States,[160] and it appears very probable there was a general depreciation in value. However, before 1850 three important things had happened, each of which had an effect upon the slave trade. First, the admission of Texas, December, 1845; second, the gradual increase in the price of cotton after 1845; third, the discovery of gold in California. The first opened a large cotton country to development and the required slave labor could be legally supplied only from the United States. The rise in cotton which continued almost uniformly until 1860[161] caused a new impetus to be given to its culture, and the discovery of gold in California infused new life into all the channels of trade.

In a few years, indeed, after 1845, the demand for slaves seems to have been greater than the supply. A writer in the "Richmond Examiner," in 1849, says:

"It being a well ascertained fact that Virginia and Maryland will not be able to supply the great demand for negroes which will be wanted in the South this fall and next spring, we would advise all who are compelled to dispose of them in this market to defer selling until the sales of the present crop of cotton can be realized as the price then must be very high owing to two reasons: First, the ravages of the cholera, and secondly, the high price of cotton."[162]

Indeed, during the fifteen years prior to 1860 the demand for slaves became so great that it caused an increase of one hundred per cent. in their price.[163] However, there was not a great increase in the domestic slave trade. According to a custom house report there were shipped from Baltimore in a little less than two years, in 1851 and 1852 only 1,033 negroes.[164] This is certainly not a large showing though it is probable a great many were sent overland to the South from this place during the same time.

In a speech before the Southern Convention at Savannah in 1856, Mr. Scott, of Virginia, made the statement that not more than half the lands in the sugar and cotton-growing States had been reduced to cultivation, and that all the valuable slaves in Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri would be required to develop them.[165] But at this time the prosperity of the latter militated against the transfer of labor to the cotton-growing States. Probably the conditions in the border States is best described by quoting from a writer in "De Bow's Review" in 1857:

"The difficulty," he says, "of procuring slaves at reasonable rates, has already been severely felt by the cotton planters, and this difficulty is constantly increasing. The production of rice, tobacco, wheat, Indian corn, etc., with stock raising, in those States affords nearly as profitable employment for slave labor as cotton planting in other States. They have not, as is generally supposed, a redundancy of slave labor, nor are they likely to have so long as their present prosperity continues.

"The recent full development of the rich agricultural and mineral resources of these States, indeed, by an immense demand for their staple productions, have not only given profitable employment to slave labor, but has improved the pecuniary condition of the slave owner and placed him above the necessity of parting with his slave property."[166]

Even Olmsted, inadvertently, no doubt, gives evidence of the prosperity of Virginia, a little before this time, when he says that in the tobacco factories of Richmond and Petersburg slaves were in great demand and received a hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars and expenses a year.[167] In North Carolina, also, good hands would bring about the same wages.[168]

Though the labor market in the border States was greater than the natural increase of the negro, yet it was hardly to be compared to the Southern demand. As a consequence, when debt, or necessity, or other reason, compelled the sale of slaves, they were often bought by traders and exported.[169] The statement was made by Mr. Jones, of Georgia, in the Savannah Convention, 1856, that negroes were even then worth from $1,000 to $1,500 each, and that there were ten purchasers to one seller.[170]

Indeed, so great was the demand for slaves at this time that the advisability of reopening the African slave trade became one of the principal topics of discussion in Southern Agricultural and Commercial Conventions.[171] In fact, the Vicksburg Convention, 1859, passed a resolution in favor of reopening the African trade.[172]

The New Orleans newspapers during all this period give evidence of the domestic trade. It was very common during the shipping season to see advertisements to the effect that the subscriber, a negro trader, had received, or had just arrived from Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas or elsewhere, with a large lot of negroes which were offered for sale. Usually the number would be given as fifty, seventy-five, or even a hundred. This would be qualified by the statement that they would be constantly receiving fresh lots. The same advertisement would continue in the same paper for months and even years. Sometimes half a dozen of these could be found in a single issue of a paper. It would be impossible even to approximate from this source the number sold during any given time, for it is likely the number offered for sale bore but little relation to the actual number sold. The States of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas were most conspicuous in these advertisements.[173]

Writers on the subject seem to be pretty well agreed that during this period, or during the fifties, about 25,000 slaves were annually sold South from the Northern slave States.[174]

It is interesting to notice in this connection what the Census Reports have to show. But in reading it should be remembered that no account is taken of the sale of slaves except as they took place between the buying and selling States. So the sale of slaves between Virginia and Maryland are not indicated nor those between Mississippi and Alabama.

The slave population of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri in 1820 was in round numbers 644,000, in 1830 997,000 being an increase of 353,000. The slave population in the selling States of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, Kentucky and the District of Columbia at the same periods[175] was 873,000 and 993,000 respectively, being an increase in these States of 120,000. Total increase of slaves in both sections during the decade, 473,000, from which we deduct 50,000 due to the illicit foreign traffic,[176] leaving 423,000 from natural increase or about 28 per cent. Had the selling States increased at this ratio, instead of 120,000 their increase would have been 244,000. This would seem to indicate that at least 12,400 annually were carried South during this decade. However, only the smaller part of these, and those of the following decade as well, were transported through the operation of the domestic slave trade. Mr. P.A. Morse, of Louisiana, writing in 1857, says that the augmentation of slaves within the cotton States was caused mostly by the migration of slave owners.[177] The "Virginia Times," in 1836, says of the number of slaves exported during the preceding twelve months "not more than one-third have been sold, the others having been carried by their owners who have removed."[178] We conclude from these and other sources[179] that at least three-fifths of the removals of slaves from the border slave States to those farther South from 1820 to 1850 were due to emigration.[180] Thus it is shown that probably 5,000[181] slaves were annually exported by the selling States from 1820 to 1830 by means of the domestic trade.

In the next decade adding Florida to the buying State and transferring South Carolina[182] and Missouri[183] to the selling list, we find that in 1830 and in 1840 the buying States had 672,000 and 1,127,000 respectively, being an increase of 455,000; while for the same periods the selling States had 1,333,000 and 1,361,000, being an increase of 28,000. The whole increase, therefore, was 483,000,[184] deducting 40,000 due to illicit foreign trade,[185] we have 443,000 or about 22 per cent. as the natural increase. Had the selling States increased at same rate it would have been 293,000 for the decade. Deducting 28,000 we find that 265,000 can be accounted for only as having been exported. Deducting three-fifths for emigration we have, removing 106,000 for the domestic traffic, an average of 10,600 per year.

By 1850, the buying States had another increase of 478,000 and the selling States 180,000. Total increase from 1840 to 1850, 658,000.[186] Deducting 50,000 illicitly imported,[187] we have 606,000 or about 24 per cent. total increase. Accordingly the selling States should have a natural increase of 326,000. Deducting the actual number we have left 146,000, which must have been transported. Deducting three-fifths on account of emigration, there would remain about 58,000 or nearly 6,000 per year for the domestic trade.

Adding Texas to the buying States in 1850, they then have 1,663,000, and in 1860 2,296,000, or an increase of 633,000 during the decade. And the selling States 1,541,000 and 1,657,000 respectively, being an increase of 116,000. Total increase 749,000.[188] Deducting 70,000 which were brought in by illicit trade[189] we have a remainder of 679,000 or 21 per cent. natural increase. From natural increase selling States should have had 207,000 more than the actual. Deducting three-fifths on account of emigration leaves a little more than 8,000 per year sold South annually for these ten years.

It is very probable that the emigration to the cotton States fell off during the fifties owing to the great prosperity in the border States, and it might be fair to reduce the number estimated to have been carried South by emigration to one-third or one-half, which would leave ten or twelve thousand per year for the domestic slave trade.

We feel quite confident that this statistical review of the domestic slave trade, based as it is upon the Census Reports, gives a truer idea of the actual amount of the trade between the selling and the buying States than could be got from any other sources.

FOOTNOTES:

[98] Acts Gen. Assembly of S.C. from Feb., 1791, to Dec., 1794, inclusive, Vol. I., 215.

[99] Hurd: Law of Freedom and Bondage, Vol. II., p. 74-75.

[100] Laws of the State of Delaware, 1793, p. 105.

[101] Mr. Miner, of Pennsylvania, in a speech in Congress, January 6, 1829, read the following presentment made by the Grand Jury at Alexandria in 1802. "We the Grand Jury for the body of the County of Alexandria in the District of Columbia, present as a grievance the practice of persons coming from distant parts of the United States into this district for the purpose of purchasing slaves."—Gales and Seaton's Register of Debates in Congress, Vol. V., p. 177. At this time the foreign slave trade was prohibited by statutes in all the states.

[102] Claibourne: Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State, Vol. I., p. 144.

[103] It is to be remembered that this was just before the opening of the foreign slave trade by South Carolina.

[104] Monette: History of the Valley of the Mississippi, Vol. II., pp. 177-191, 269, 295, 547. Niles' Register, Sept. 13 and Oct. 18, 1817.

[105] Census 1870. Population and Statistics, p. 4, 7 (recapitulation).

[106] Annals of Congress, 16th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 77.

[107] Above Chap. I. Vincent Nolte, p. 189. Am. Col. So. Reports, Vol. I., p. 94. Du Bois, p. 111.

[108] Clay's Col. Society Speech, Dec. 17, 1829.

[109] William Darby travelled all through the Southwestern part of the country from about 1805 to 1815, and wrote two books: "A Geographical Description of the State of Louisiana, Mississippi and the Territory of Alabama", published in 1817, and the Emigrants' Guide, 1818. He visited both Natchez and New Orleans. F. Cumming Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country, 1807 to 1809. John Bradbury: Travels in the Interior of America in the years 1809-10-11, including a description of Upper Louisiana, together with the Illinois and Western Territories. Christian Scutz: Travels on an Inland Voyage Through the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and through the territories of Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Orleans in the years 1807, 1808. Vincent Nolte: Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres. And others.

[110] Niles' Reg., Vol. XIII., p. 119, Oct. 18, 1817.

[111] (Paulding): Letters from the South, pp. 122, 128.

[112] Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473.

[113] Birkbeck: Notes on a Journey from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois, p. 25. Palmer: Journal of Travels in the United States, p. 142. Francis Hall, Travels in Canada and the United States, p. 358.

[114] Fearon: Sketches of America, p. 268.

[115] Facts Respecting Slavery, p. 2 in (Yale) Slavery Pamphlet, Vol. LXI.

[116] Acts of the General Assembly of Georgia, p. 139. Note.—From 1810 to 1820 slaves increased in Georgia about 44,000, or 43 per cent. The illicit foreign traffic to this State was great during part of this time. Torrey says in 1817, that it was common for masters in Maryland, Delaware and District of Columbia to endeavor to reform bad slaves by threatening to sell them to Georgia. Torrey: Portraiture of Slavery in United States, p. 37.

[117] Census 1870, Vol. Pop. and Statistics, p. 7.

[118] Ibid., p. 4.

[119] Ibid., pp. 4, 6, 7.

[120] Monette: History of Mississippi Valley, Vol. II., p. 515.

[121] Census 1870. Pop. and Social Statistics, pp. 4, 6, 7.

[122] In 1810 there were in Louisiana 34,660 slaves and 7,585 free colored (census reports); according to Monette (Vol. II., p. 515) in 1815 there were about 45,000 blacks. It is reasonable to suppose that at least 8,500 of these must have been free negroes as there were 10,476 free negroes in Louisiana in 1820. (Census reports.)

[123] Monette: Vol. IV., pp. 281, 433, 444, 445. Evans: A Pedestrious Tour, p. 173. Niles' Reg., Vol. XIII., pp. 40, 119. Sept. 13, Oct. 18, 1817.

[124] State Papers, 16th Congress, 1st Session, Vol. III., Doc. 42. Niles' Reg., May 2, 1818, Jan. 22, 1820; Sept. 6, 1817. Wm. Jay: Miscellaneous Writings, p. 277, Chap. I. above.

[125] (Isaac Candler): A Summary View of America during a Journey in 1822-23; p. 273.

[126] (Wm. Newnham Blane): An Excursion through the United States and Canada, p. 226.

[127] Basil Hall: Travels in North America, Vol. II., p. 219.

[128] Ibid.: p. 220. Niles' Reg., Dec. 27, 1828.

[129] Du Bois, p. 128.

[130] Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473.

[131] Woodbury's Report, p. 13.

[132] Ibid.

[133] Quoted from the African Repository, Vol. V., p. 381.

[134] Niles' Reg., Nov. 26, 1831.

[135] Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 30, 1831.