Innovations such as coastwise shipping and easy extensions of long credit to slaveholders brought him great wealth, with the partnership likely becoming the largest slave trading firm during its peak of operations.

Although temporarily able to circumvent the imposition of slave trade restrictions in Louisiana, he began to mainly focus on sales at his Natchez property, working alongside his nephew James Franklin Purvis.

Amassing a great fortune from his slave trading, he was able to purchase a large property in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, in addition to his main Fairvue Plantation in Tennessee.

After one such journey in early 1809, James Franklin Jr. had acquired bills of exchange worth several thousand dollars as payment for slaves, which required cashing at the Brown & Ives firm in Providence, Rhode Island.

[11][12] Demand for slaves in the Old Southwest dramatically increased after the War of 1812, following the migration of large numbers of white settlers in the region, as well as a process of indigenous land seizure culminating in the Indian removal.

James Franklin Jr. rented a two-acre property in Alexandria, likely to serve as a base of operations and "holding pen" for his brother's trade in exchange for payment.

[18][19] In the spring of 1821, Franklin and his younger brother William acquired a house several blocks outside of the Natchez city limits, likely purchased through the sale of three slaves to the former property owners.

Unlike the "makeshift pens" used by itinerant slave traders in Natchez, the Franklin brothers' facility was a sizeable complex able to confine many enslaved people at once.

[31] While Armfield and various contracted agents purchased slaves in Virginia, Franklin primarily managed the company's finances and shipments from his bases of operations in Natchez and New Orleans.

[31] In April 1829, following a local ban on slave trading in New Orleans, he leased a house and three vacant lots in the Faubourg Marigny, immediately outside of the city limits.

The Louisiana State Legislature began to institute policies regulating certain aspects of the slave trade, including banning the sale of unaccompanied young children.

Franklin & Armfield shipped the enslaved from the Chesapeake to the Lower Mississippi, reducing costs, travel time, and the chance of escape, as well as allowing large shipments of more than a hundred slaves at once.

[41] Another advantage enjoyed by Franklin was an ability to handle large amount of credit, promissory notes, and paper money, privately issued during the period.

I thought that an old Robber might be satisfied with two or three maids.Franklin was "focused on" a sex slave named Lucinda Jackson or "Lucindy" after purchasing her at a company discount in 1834, impregnating her shortly before his marriage.

Although the uprising was quickly crushed, the large number of whites killed by the rebels led to widespread fear of future rebellion, and a wave of legislation targeting the slave trade.

Franklin, who by September 1831 was preparing to receive several large shipments totaling around 400 people, had grown increasingly worried about the prospects of a slave trading ban in Louisiana even before the rebellion.

[58] Such credit was often on shaky foundations: buyers frequently withheld payment for months or years, and occasionally backed purchases with unendorsed promissory notes financed purely from mortgages on the enslaved.

[64][65] Although speculation over an expanding cotton industry led to many buyers in Natchez, they were unable to pay even their interest in cash, often making purchases in the form of the accommodation paper of city merchants.

[66] Early 1832 was a particularly difficult period for the company, and Franklin directed Ballard to borrow from northern banks in order to maintain cash flow until buyers in New Orleans were able to repay their debts.

[71] Franklin also expressed irritation at Armfield's large and expensive shipment, describing the survivors as "little slim assed girls and boys" who "cannot be sold for a profit".

[79] The Louisiana legislature rescinded the ban on slave imports in late 1833, leading Franklin to rent a new property in New Orleans, two blocks away from his former compound in Faubourg Marigny.

Franklin believed that snowfall and freezing rain created the possibility of a sugarcane crop failure, resulting in a slave supply glut due to mass sales by planters seeking to recuperate their losses.

He ordered Ballard to lower purchase volume, and refocused the company towards collecting outstanding bills, intending to sell slaves on long-term credit when markets improved.

[87] Although Franklin offered advice, and still occasionally engaged in slave trading, he mainly retired from the firm in favor of managing his properties in Louisiana and Tennessee.

The company sold the Isaac Franklin and their Alexandria offices to agent George Kephart, while renting the Forks of the Road facility to other slave traders.

[95] Madison Henderson, a runaway slave convicted of murder during an attempted bank robbery, offered a lurid account of Franklin's operations while on death row in 1841 and was interviewed by local press.

[99] In May 1835, Franklin purchased a half-stake in a 7,767-acre (3,143 ha) property (alongside 205 enslaved people) in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, divided among the three plantations of Bellevue, Killarney, and Lochlomond.

[101] Routh and his family refused to leave the plantation, even after accepting offers of slaves, money, and farm animals in exchange, leading Franklin to evict them in late 1838.

As over a hundred slaves worked to clear dense swampy forest on his Angola plantation, he installed a steam-powered sawmill in order to sell lumber and timber.

[109] Although he considered striking any philanthropic inheritance from his will shortly before death, a third of his wealth was set aside for the creation of an academy on the grounds of Fairvue, as well as for the education of poor children in Sumner County.