Forrest & Maples

Forrest & Maples was an American slave-trading company based in Memphis, Tennessee, United States during the mid-1850s.

[2] In November 1854 Forrest & Maples sold a nine-year-old girl named Page to Lavinia and Lemuel Smith for $600.

[3] According to Forrest biographer Jack Hurst: The profits of the trade during this era, in which the prices of slaves in the burgeoning Southwest were rising quickly, are indicated by the return on a two-week investment Forrest & Maples made on three—'Ellick aged 30, Rhita aged 40 + her child Ellick 6 years'—purchased from Miss S. I. Stailey on October 16, 1854, for $1,450.

Such profit (more than 10 percent in seventeen days) was commonplace, made possible by the economic tenor of the time and place.On July 9, 1855, they sold Adisson, age 22, to V. Beckworth for $1,000.

[5] One interesting case of a runaway slave ad placed by the firm is told in Chase C. Mooney's Slavery in Tennessee (1957): "Forrest and Maples offered the largest known reward for one of their escapees.