List of slave traders of the United States

[4] Slavery was widespread, so slave trading was widespread, and "When a planter died, failed in business, divided his estate, needed ready money to satisfy a mortgage or pay a gambling debt, or desired to get rid of an unruly Negro, traders struck a profitable bargain.

"[5] A slave trader might have described himself as a broker, auctioneer, general agent, or commission merchant,[6] and often sold real estate, personal property, and livestock in addition to enslaved people.

[7] Many large trading firms also had field agents, whose job it was to go to more remote towns and rural areas, buying up enslaved people for resale elsewhere.

Countless slaves were also sold at courthouse auctions by county sheriffs and U.S. marshals to satisfy court judgments, settle estates, and to "cover jail fees"; individuals involved in those sales are not the primary focus of this list.

Note: Research by Michael Tadman has found that "'core' sources provide only a basic skeleton of a much more substantial trade" in enslaved people throughout the South, with particular deficits in records of rural slave trading, already wealthy people who speculated to grow their wealth further, and in all private sales that occurred outside auction houses and negro marts.

Mary A. Livermore was a private tutor at a Virginia plantation around 1840; she commissioned this illustration for her memoir. The accompanying text reads: "Do all slave-traders look alike?" inquired Mary. "All that I've ever seen, do. They're all long and gawky, an' have no hair on top o' their heads; an' they all squint or are cross-eyed; an' they're all bow-legged, or limp; an' they all spit in the fire, an' they've all had the small-pox, an' they all look jess like this fellar." We all laughed at Dick's graphic description. "Pray, how many slave-traders have you seen, in the course of your not very long life?" I asked. "There's been two here afore, an' there was one down to The Oaks, when we were there. Jim an' me talked with 'im. An' once when me an' Pa went to Boydon, I saw half a dozen of 'em, an' talked with 'em; they're mighty mean ornary men, slave traders are like this fellar, an' wear jess such baggy, butte' nut breeches , that don't fit 'em. I can tell if this fellar's a slave-trader, quick as wink, when I hear 'im talk."
When the Union Army entered Savannah, Georgia during the American Civil War , they occupied what is now called the John Montmollin Building ; it had a large sign that read "A. Bryan's Negro Mart" and was described as having "handcuffs, whips, and staples for tying, etc. Bills of sale of slaves by hundreds, and letters, all giving faithful description of the hellish business." [ 1 ] The building became one of two schools for children of freedmen that were opened January 10, 1865. The schools had 500 students, and were operated by the Savannah Educational Association, which was "supported entirely by the freedmen, [and] collected and expended $900 for educational purposes in its first year of operation." [ 2 ]
"Slave Trader, Sold to Tennessee" depicting a coffle from Virginia in 1850 ( Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum )
Poindexter & Little , like many interstate slave-trading firms, had a buy-side in the upper south and a sell-side in the lower south [ 13 ] ( Southern Confederacy , January 12, 1862, page 1, via Digital Library of Georgia )
Slave trading was legal in District of Columbia until 1850 and in the 15 so-called slave states (listed in order of admission to the Union): Delaware , Georgia , Maryland , South Carolina , Virginia , North Carolina , Kentucky , Tennessee , Louisiana , Mississippi , Alabama , Missouri , Arkansas , Florida , and Texas ( Reynolds's 1856 Political Map of the United States , depicting Missouri Compromise line, et al., Library of Congress Geography and Map Division)
Lyrics to a "singularly wild and plaintive air" about the interstate slave trade, recorded in "Letter XI. The Interior of South Carolina. A Corn-Shucking. Barnwell District, South Carolina, March 29, 1843" [ 14 ] in William Cullen Bryant 's Letters from a Traveler, reprinted in The Ottawa Free Trader , Ottawa, Illinois, November 8, 1856 [ 15 ]
"A Sailor's Notion" The Liberator , March 24, 1837
Antebellum city directories from slave states can be valuable primary sources on the trade; slave dealers listed in the 1855 directory of Memphis, Tennessee, included Bolton & Dickens , Forrest & Maples operating at 87 Adams , Neville & Cunningham , and Byrd Hill
Slave depots, including ones owned by Mason Harwell and Thomas Powell , listed in the 1859 Montgomery, Alabama city directory
Slave dealers listed in the 1861 directory of New Orleans, Louisiana, including C. F. Hatcher , Walter L. Campbell , R. H. Elam , Poindexter & Little , C. M. Rutherford , and J. M. Wilson
Slave dealers listed in the 1861 Louisville, Kentucky, city directory, including Matthew Garrison and Tarleton and Jordan Arterburn
In 1860 the city of Macon, Georgia had a population of 8,000 and supported three slave depots (Digital Library of Georgia)
This 1862 etching of the Louisville wharf shows the view slaves might have had of the city before beginning the steamboat journey to the slave markets of the Deep South
Bird's eye view of the city of Memphis, Tennessee 1870; the city's slave pens had mostly been clustered on Adams
"Gen. Jackson, a Negro Trader" The Ariel , Natchez, September 8, 1828
"United States Slave Trade 1830" from Benjamin Lundy 's Genius of Universal Emancipation depicted the rise of the coastwise slave trade between the Chesapeake Bay and the Mississippi watershed
Lithographic illustration of chapter 30 from Uncle Tom's Cabin : "The Slave Warehouse"
Leonard Everett Fisher illustration showing Mr. Haley, the slave trader character from Harriet Beecher Stowe 's novel
Frederic Bancroft noted that in many towns "the same man dealt in horses, mules and slaves." [ 373 ] ("Yazoo City Livery Stable: Horses, Mules, Negroes, &c, &c. bought and sold on commission." The Yazoo Democrat , March 18, 1846)
C. R. Bricken sold slave insurance , and listed a number of notable slave traders (including Seth Woodroof , Robert Lumpkin , Silas Omohundro , Hector Davis , Solomon Davis , and R. H. Dickinson ) as references to whom "losses had been paid" ( Richmond Enquirer , November 6, 1855)
Traders including Shadrack F. Slatter , Walter L. Campbell , Joseph Bruin , and J. M. Wilson all used this site at Esplanade and Chartres (previously Moreau) in New Orleans at various times [ 120 ]
In 1831, the first title-band vignette for The Liberator depicted a slave auction under a horse market sign, a whipping post set up in front of the U.S. Capitol , and an Indian treaty discarded in the mud and forgotten [ 483 ]
View of Savannah from the River ( Picturesque America , 1872)
Flat-bottomed barges, sailboats, steamboats, and a fisherman's skiff on the Mississippi at New Orleans ( Picturesque America , 1872)
"Slave Transfer Agencies" listed in an 1854 Southern business directory, including Thomas Foster in New Orleans, a C. M. Rutherford partnership, and G. M. Noel in Memphis
Eyre Crowe , "Slave sale, Charleston, S.C.," published in The Illustrated London News , Nov. 29, 1856: The flag tied to a post beside the steps reads "Auction This Day by Alonzo J. White". The other flag was rendered in red in a later oil painting of the same image. A red flag indicated to buyers that a slave sale was imminent. In 1856, Alonzo J. White , along with fellow slave traders Louis D. DeSaussure and Ziba B. Oakes , opposed a new South Carolina law requiring that slave sales take place indoors rather than on the streets. Their argument was that the law was "an impolitic admission that would give 'strength to the opponents of slavery' and 'create among some portions of the community a doubt as to the moral right of slavery itself.'" [ 540 ]
Boat landings at Vicksburg and Memphis photographed c. 1913 , perhaps looking not so different from how they looked in their days as hubs of the interstate slave trade
"Thomson Negro Trader" had mail waiting for him in Little Rock, Arkansas, in November 1859