This is a list of American slave traders, people whose occupation or business was the
slave trade in the United States, i.e. the buying and selling of human chattel as commodities, primarily African-American people in the Southern United States, from the declaration of independence in 1776 until the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865. People who dealt in enslaved indigenous persons, such as was the case with
slavery in California, would also be included. This list represents a fraction of the "many hundreds of participants in a cruel and omnipresent" American market.[3]
The
Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves was passed in 1808 under the so-called
Star-Spangled Banner flag, when there were 15 states in the Union. The last slave auction in the rebel states was held in 1865.[4] In the intervening years, the politics surrounding the addition of 20 new states to the Union had been almost overwhelmingly dominated by whether or not those states would have legal slavery.[5] 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."[6] A slave trader might have described himself as a broker, auctioneer, general agent, or commission merchant,[7] and often sold real estate, personal property, and livestock in addition to enslaved people.[8] 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.[4] Countless enslaved people were also sold at courthouse auctions by county sheriffs and U.S. marshals to satisfy court judgments and settle estates; 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.[9]
List is organized by surname of trader, or name of firm, where principals have not been further identified.
We must have a market for human flesh, or we are ruined.
—
Frederick Douglass, on the predominant message from the Southern states to the U.S. government before the American Civil War, The Frederick Douglass Papers, vol. II, p. 405
It's old Van Horn, de nigger trader Hilo! Hilo!
He sold his wife to buy a nigger Hilo! Hilo!
He sold her first to Louisianner Hilo! Hilo!
And den from dat to Alabammer Hilo! Hilo!
— said to be a fragment of a much longer "negro corn-shucking song," also called a working song or
field holler; published 1859[353]
I never knew a slave-trader that did not seem to think, in his heart, that the trade was a bad one. I knew a great many of them, such as
Neal, McAnn, Cobb, Stone,
Pulliam, and
Davis, &c. They were like Haley, they meant to repent when they got through.
^
abcdefgDew, Charles B. (2016). The making of a racist : a southerner reflects on family, history, and the slave trade. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. pp. 101–103, 117, 144 (last sale).
ISBN9780813938882.
LCCN2015043815.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Louisville District 2, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: 206; Page: 185b - occupation Negro dealer
^"Illustration of American Slavery" Newspapers.com, The Liberator, November 23, 1849, http://www.newspapers.com/article/the-liberator-illustration-of-american-s/143993035/
^
abFinley, Alexandra J. (2020). An intimate economy: enslaved women, work, and America's domestic slave trade. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 101, 103.
ISBN978-1-4696-5512-3.
^"Nashville, 1860". U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995. Ancestry.com. p. 130. Retrieved 2023-07-22. Boyd, Wm. L. Jr., general agent and dealer in slaves, 50, north Cherry st., residence, 6, north Cherry st.
^
ab"Cash for Negroes". Spirit Of Jefferson. May 24, 1853. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
^
ab"Cash for Negroes". Alexandria Gazette. March 11, 1851. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
^Calonius, Erik (2006). The Wanderer: the last American slave ship and the conspiracy that set its sails. New York, N.Y: Saint Martin's Press. p. 125.
ISBN978-0-312-34347-7.
^
abJohn Clark 619 W Market Slave Dealer, page 56 – William P Davis 212 Sixth 201 W Green Slave Dealer, page 69 – Matthew Garrison page 97 –William W Wilson page 265 – Louisville, Kentucky, City Directory, 1861
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group and Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Savannah District 4, Chatham, Georgia; Roll: M653_115; Page: 280; Family History Library Film: 803115 - occupation "negro broker"
^"Runaway Negro" Newspapers.com, Bossier Banner-Progress, May 11, 1860, https://
www.newspapers.com/article/bossier-banner-progress-runaway-negro/143863630/
^"Committed". The Democrat. July 7, 1847. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
^
ab"Negroes wanted". The Courier-Journal. July 4, 1844. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Louisville District 2, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: 206; Page: 189a - occupation Negro dealer
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Richmond, Richmond (Independent City), Virginia; Roll: 951; Page: 298a - occupation Negro dealer
^
ab"NEGROES WANTED". Carolina Watchman. June 14, 1834. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Fairfax, Virginia; Roll: M653_1343; Page: 890; Family History Library Film: 805343 / occupation: dealer in slaves
^"Affray and murder". Cherokee Phoenix, and Indians' Advocate. September 23, 1829. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-09-17.
^"NY Evening Post" Newspapers.com, Anti-Slavery Bugle, May 1, 1852, http://www.newspapers.com/article/anti-slavery-bugle-ny-evening-post/143996318/
^
abE S Hawkins, 1860, 18 Cedar St, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, Slave-Dealer - Nashville, Tennessee, City Directory, 1860 - Page 188 G H Hitchings 72 Broad St Nashville, Tennessee, USA - Negro-Dealer - page 305 - Nashville, Tennessee, City Directory, 1860
^
ab"70 Negroes for Sale". The Mississippi Free Trader. May 26, 1849. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-21.
^"Cash for Negroes". Nashville Union and American. January 18, 1859. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-26.
^
abcColby, Robert (2023). "Chapter 11: Waiting for Fevers to Abate: The Contagion and Fear in the Domestic Slave Trade". In Cooper, Mandy L.; Popp, Andrew (eds.). Business of Emotions in Modern History. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 219–239.
doi:
10.5040/9781350268876.ch-11.
ISBN978-1-3502-6249-2.
OCLC1294194709.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Richmond Ward 3, Henrico, Virginia; Roll: M653_1353; Page: 524; Family History Library Film: 805353 - occupation negro dealer
^"Horrid Outrage". The North-Carolina Star. May 15, 1834. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
^"Negroes!". Vicksburg Daily Whig. January 17, 1846. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-08-22.
^"Dissolution of Co-Partnership" Newspapers.com, The New Orleans Crescent, August 19, 1852, http://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-orleans-crescent-dissolution-of/143998817/
^"Negroes for Sale". Weekly Columbus Enquirer. December 30, 1851. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-21.
^"Negroes! Negroes!" Newspapers.com, Gazette and Sentinel, December 4, 1858,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/gazette-and-sentinel-negroes-negroes/143863374/
^Wilson, Brandon R. (2023). "Chapter I: Slave Incarceration at the Foundation of Kentucky Finance". In Smith, Gerald L. (ed.). Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State: Revisiting My Old Kentucky Home. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky. pp. 22 (Pullum).
doi:
10.2307/j.ctv32nxz6m.4.
ISBN978-0-8131-9616-9.
JSTORj.ctv32nxz6m.4.
^
ab"Awful Tragedy". The Louisville Daily Courier. February 21, 1848. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-12.
^David Ross, 1861, 633 E Jefferson, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, Late Negro Trader in Louisville, Kentucky, City Directory, 1861 Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995[database on-line].
^"Jailor's Notice". Weekly Raleigh Register. April 20, 1839. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
^"South Carolina Money". Memphis Evening Ledger. October 29, 1857. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
^"Tragical Affair". The Louisville Daily Courier. December 1, 1851. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-12.
^"Claiborne Co. Port Gibson" Newspapers.com, The Concordia Intelligencer, March 31, 1854,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-concordia-intelligencer-claiborne-co/143864159/
^"Runaways in Jail" Newspapers.com, Vicksburg Daily Whig, April 21, 1858, https://www.newspapers.com/article/vicksburg-daily-whig-runaways-in-jail/143865165/
^"MURDER." Newspapers.com, Alabama Beacon, January 22, 1858, https://www.newspapers.com/article/alabama-beacon-murder/143865295/
^"Notice". The North-Carolinian. December 16, 1843. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
Garrett, Franklin M. (2011) [1954]. Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1820s–1870s (Reprint ed.). University of Georgia Press.
ISBN9780820339023.
Kytle, Ethan J.; Roberts, Blain (2018). Denmark Vesey's garden: slavery and memory in the cradle of the Confederacy. New York: The New Press.
ISBN9781620973660.
LCCN2017041546.
Schermerhorn, Calvin (2015). The business of slavery and the rise of American capitalism, 1815-1860. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
ISBN978-0-300-19200-1.
Sellers, James Benson (2015) [1950]. "Chapter 5: Traffic in Slaves". Slavery in Alabama. Library of Alabama Classics. Introduction by Harriet E. Amos Doss. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
ISBN9780817389147.
LCCN50004433.
OCLC899157440.
This is a list of American slave traders, people whose occupation or business was the
slave trade in the United States, i.e. the buying and selling of human chattel as commodities, primarily African-American people in the Southern United States, from the declaration of independence in 1776 until the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865. People who dealt in enslaved indigenous persons, such as was the case with
slavery in California, would also be included. This list represents a fraction of the "many hundreds of participants in a cruel and omnipresent" American market.[3]
The
Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves was passed in 1808 under the so-called
Star-Spangled Banner flag, when there were 15 states in the Union. The last slave auction in the rebel states was held in 1865.[4] In the intervening years, the politics surrounding the addition of 20 new states to the Union had been almost overwhelmingly dominated by whether or not those states would have legal slavery.[5] 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."[6] A slave trader might have described himself as a broker, auctioneer, general agent, or commission merchant,[7] and often sold real estate, personal property, and livestock in addition to enslaved people.[8] 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.[4] Countless enslaved people were also sold at courthouse auctions by county sheriffs and U.S. marshals to satisfy court judgments and settle estates; 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.[9]
List is organized by surname of trader, or name of firm, where principals have not been further identified.
We must have a market for human flesh, or we are ruined.
—
Frederick Douglass, on the predominant message from the Southern states to the U.S. government before the American Civil War, The Frederick Douglass Papers, vol. II, p. 405
It's old Van Horn, de nigger trader Hilo! Hilo!
He sold his wife to buy a nigger Hilo! Hilo!
He sold her first to Louisianner Hilo! Hilo!
And den from dat to Alabammer Hilo! Hilo!
— said to be a fragment of a much longer "negro corn-shucking song," also called a working song or
field holler; published 1859[353]
I never knew a slave-trader that did not seem to think, in his heart, that the trade was a bad one. I knew a great many of them, such as
Neal, McAnn, Cobb, Stone,
Pulliam, and
Davis, &c. They were like Haley, they meant to repent when they got through.
^
abcdefgDew, Charles B. (2016). The making of a racist : a southerner reflects on family, history, and the slave trade. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. pp. 101–103, 117, 144 (last sale).
ISBN9780813938882.
LCCN2015043815.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Louisville District 2, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: 206; Page: 185b - occupation Negro dealer
^"Illustration of American Slavery" Newspapers.com, The Liberator, November 23, 1849, http://www.newspapers.com/article/the-liberator-illustration-of-american-s/143993035/
^
abFinley, Alexandra J. (2020). An intimate economy: enslaved women, work, and America's domestic slave trade. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 101, 103.
ISBN978-1-4696-5512-3.
^"Nashville, 1860". U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995. Ancestry.com. p. 130. Retrieved 2023-07-22. Boyd, Wm. L. Jr., general agent and dealer in slaves, 50, north Cherry st., residence, 6, north Cherry st.
^
ab"Cash for Negroes". Spirit Of Jefferson. May 24, 1853. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
^
ab"Cash for Negroes". Alexandria Gazette. March 11, 1851. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
^Calonius, Erik (2006). The Wanderer: the last American slave ship and the conspiracy that set its sails. New York, N.Y: Saint Martin's Press. p. 125.
ISBN978-0-312-34347-7.
^
abJohn Clark 619 W Market Slave Dealer, page 56 – William P Davis 212 Sixth 201 W Green Slave Dealer, page 69 – Matthew Garrison page 97 –William W Wilson page 265 – Louisville, Kentucky, City Directory, 1861
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group and Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Savannah District 4, Chatham, Georgia; Roll: M653_115; Page: 280; Family History Library Film: 803115 - occupation "negro broker"
^"Runaway Negro" Newspapers.com, Bossier Banner-Progress, May 11, 1860, https://
www.newspapers.com/article/bossier-banner-progress-runaway-negro/143863630/
^"Committed". The Democrat. July 7, 1847. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
^
ab"Negroes wanted". The Courier-Journal. July 4, 1844. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-14.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Louisville District 2, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: 206; Page: 189a - occupation Negro dealer
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Richmond, Richmond (Independent City), Virginia; Roll: 951; Page: 298a - occupation Negro dealer
^
ab"NEGROES WANTED". Carolina Watchman. June 14, 1834. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Fairfax, Virginia; Roll: M653_1343; Page: 890; Family History Library Film: 805343 / occupation: dealer in slaves
^"Affray and murder". Cherokee Phoenix, and Indians' Advocate. September 23, 1829. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-09-17.
^"NY Evening Post" Newspapers.com, Anti-Slavery Bugle, May 1, 1852, http://www.newspapers.com/article/anti-slavery-bugle-ny-evening-post/143996318/
^
abE S Hawkins, 1860, 18 Cedar St, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, Slave-Dealer - Nashville, Tennessee, City Directory, 1860 - Page 188 G H Hitchings 72 Broad St Nashville, Tennessee, USA - Negro-Dealer - page 305 - Nashville, Tennessee, City Directory, 1860
^
ab"70 Negroes for Sale". The Mississippi Free Trader. May 26, 1849. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-21.
^"Cash for Negroes". Nashville Union and American. January 18, 1859. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-08-26.
^
abcColby, Robert (2023). "Chapter 11: Waiting for Fevers to Abate: The Contagion and Fear in the Domestic Slave Trade". In Cooper, Mandy L.; Popp, Andrew (eds.). Business of Emotions in Modern History. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 219–239.
doi:
10.5040/9781350268876.ch-11.
ISBN978-1-3502-6249-2.
OCLC1294194709.
^The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Richmond Ward 3, Henrico, Virginia; Roll: M653_1353; Page: 524; Family History Library Film: 805353 - occupation negro dealer
^"Horrid Outrage". The North-Carolina Star. May 15, 1834. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
^"Negroes!". Vicksburg Daily Whig. January 17, 1846. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-08-22.
^"Dissolution of Co-Partnership" Newspapers.com, The New Orleans Crescent, August 19, 1852, http://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-orleans-crescent-dissolution-of/143998817/
^"Negroes for Sale". Weekly Columbus Enquirer. December 30, 1851. p. 3. Retrieved 2023-08-21.
^"Negroes! Negroes!" Newspapers.com, Gazette and Sentinel, December 4, 1858,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/gazette-and-sentinel-negroes-negroes/143863374/
^Wilson, Brandon R. (2023). "Chapter I: Slave Incarceration at the Foundation of Kentucky Finance". In Smith, Gerald L. (ed.). Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State: Revisiting My Old Kentucky Home. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky. pp. 22 (Pullum).
doi:
10.2307/j.ctv32nxz6m.4.
ISBN978-0-8131-9616-9.
JSTORj.ctv32nxz6m.4.
^
ab"Awful Tragedy". The Louisville Daily Courier. February 21, 1848. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-12.
^David Ross, 1861, 633 E Jefferson, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, Late Negro Trader in Louisville, Kentucky, City Directory, 1861 Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995[database on-line].
^"Jailor's Notice". Weekly Raleigh Register. April 20, 1839. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
^"South Carolina Money". Memphis Evening Ledger. October 29, 1857. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-08-15.
^"Tragical Affair". The Louisville Daily Courier. December 1, 1851. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-12.
^"Claiborne Co. Port Gibson" Newspapers.com, The Concordia Intelligencer, March 31, 1854,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-concordia-intelligencer-claiborne-co/143864159/
^"Runaways in Jail" Newspapers.com, Vicksburg Daily Whig, April 21, 1858, https://www.newspapers.com/article/vicksburg-daily-whig-runaways-in-jail/143865165/
^"MURDER." Newspapers.com, Alabama Beacon, January 22, 1858, https://www.newspapers.com/article/alabama-beacon-murder/143865295/
^"Notice". The North-Carolinian. December 16, 1843. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-09-18.
Garrett, Franklin M. (2011) [1954]. Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events, 1820s–1870s (Reprint ed.). University of Georgia Press.
ISBN9780820339023.
Kytle, Ethan J.; Roberts, Blain (2018). Denmark Vesey's garden: slavery and memory in the cradle of the Confederacy. New York: The New Press.
ISBN9781620973660.
LCCN2017041546.
Schermerhorn, Calvin (2015). The business of slavery and the rise of American capitalism, 1815-1860. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
ISBN978-0-300-19200-1.
Sellers, James Benson (2015) [1950]. "Chapter 5: Traffic in Slaves". Slavery in Alabama. Library of Alabama Classics. Introduction by Harriet E. Amos Doss. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
ISBN9780817389147.
LCCN50004433.
OCLC899157440.