The Business of Slavery
Slavery created enormous profits not only for Southern planters and slave traders, but also for Northern cotton-mill owners and investors. Nearly one million enslaved Africans, defined as property, were wrenched from their upper South families. Some bought their freedom; more fought back by running away or even taking their own lives.
Sculpture of enslaved family
Slaves were often sold off the plantation for later auction. In the scene depicted in the American Enterprise exhibition, set in the upper South, the parents had no warning when traders came for their son. You can learn more about this sculpture's purpose and design in the O Say Can You See blog post, "Depicting the business of slavery."
Slave manifest of schooner Lafayette, 1833
This ship manifest recorded the January day when eighty-three slaves of the upper South embarked on a journey to an unknown location and undetermined fate in the Deep South. It was likely they would never see their families again.
Receipt of slave sale, issued to J.C. Sproull, by Jones and Matthews, Richmond, Virginia, 1850
The business of slavery included the production of standardized printed forms for the slave trader's use. Typically such forms just proved that a transition took place; this once concerned the sale of a human being.
Courtesy of Virginia Historical Society
James DeWolf, 1764–1837
A notorious slave trader and a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, DeWolf defied government laws restricting the slave trade by evading customs inspections and using Cuba as his slave depot. His commerce in slaves, along with his cotton manufacturing interests, brought him great wealth and political prominence.
Courtesy of Rhode Island Historical Society
"Miss Fillis & Child, and Bill, Sold at Publick Sale," from from Lewis Miller's Sketchbook of Landscapes in the State of Virginia, about 1853
Pennsylvanian Lewis Miller viewed this public sale of slaves when he visited his brother in Christiansburg, Virginia. The slaves' names may substantiate the accuracy of the scene.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Richard M. Kain in memory of George Hay Kain