The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of the Old Dominion

By Jack Trammell and Alphine W. Jefferson

This historical study examines the slave trade in Richmond, Virginia, and its impact on the city’s economy, culture and politics.
 
Richmond’s 15th Street was known as Wall Street in antebellum times, and like its New York counterpart, it was a center of commerce. But the business done here was unspeakable and the scene heart wrenching. With over sixty-nine slave dealers and auction houses, the Wall Street area saw tens of millions of dollars and countless human lives change hands, fueling the southern economy.
 
Local historian and author Jack Trammell traces the history of the city’s slave trade, from the origins of African slavery in Virginia to its destruction at the end of the Civil War. Stories of seedy slave speculators and corrupt traders are placed alongside detailed accounts of the economic, political and cultural impact of a system representing the most immense, concentrated human suffering in our nation's history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781614233657

Jack Trammell

Jack Trammell is an author, professor of sociology and researcher. His recent books include The Fourth Branch of Government and The Richmond Slave Trade. He is a recognized voice of Appalachia and a scholar of social history, disability and research design. Guy Terrell is a project manager, writer and educator. He recently coauthored The Fourth Branch of Government. He earned his BA at Hampden-Sydney College, an MBA from George Mason University and an MS in information systems from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is past president and treasurer of the Poetry Society of Virginia.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Slavery and Virginia

The story of the slave trade in Richmond is in many ways the story of Virginia. Slavery is arguably the darkest shadow to pass over the bright light of almost five hundred years of modern Virginia history. When the first Africans disembarked at the Jamestown settlement in 1619, near the confluence of the James and Chickahominy Rivers, it wasn’t clear to any of the European colonists or even the Africans themselves exactly what their future status in the New World would be. There is some evidence that the twenty Africans—reportedly stolen from the Spanish and bartered by a Dutch pirate—arrived in the New World with a somewhat ambiguous status as indentured servants rather than in permanent bondage. According to Linwood Johnson and others, it is possible that they were not lifelong slaves, and the names of eleven of the first Africans are known, as is the fact that eleven of them were likely baptized as

Reviews for The Richmond Slave Trade

[keylawk · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The author is a history professor, and also a Southern gentleman farmer and well-traveled global disability rights advocate. This book, one of a number of books this prolific scholar has written, de-mythologizes the role which Slavery played in the South. One of the most economically-robust and few "urban" areas--it had a Wall Street--was the Richmond port of the Old Dominion. Virginians dominated much of the post-Revolutionary Era because of this economic power. Trammell studies the heart of this power: Slavery. Far from being an institution dying away, Slavery enabled The South to build a virtual monopoly on Raw Cotton and Tobacco. In a short time, the plutocracy adopted feudal attitudes -- jealously guarding their prerogatives, subordinating the middle class (even whites), and refusing to permit themselves to be taxed. Slavery brought great wealth to a few, for a short time. But as its contemporaries themselves observed, the "peculiar institution" tended to degrade everyone and everything it touched, from the top down. The author relies upon hard evidence--the structures, artifacts and documents. I will have to study this book again. Very very fact-based, and filled with implications. The author sticks to the facts and does not rub any theory or ideology or mythical "narrative" in our faces. Refreshing.