THE
DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE
OF THE
SOUTHERN STATES
BY
WINFIELD H. COLLINS, M.A.
_Professor of History and English in Claremont College._
[Illustration]
BROADWAY PUBLISHING
COMPANY :: AT 835
BROADWAY NEW YORK
Copyrighted, in 1904,
BY
WINFIELD H. COLLINS, M.A.
_All Rights Reserved._
TO
EDWARD G. BOURNE, PH.D.,
_Professor of American History, Yale University_,
AND TO
THOMAS H. LEWIS, D.D.,
_President of Western Maryland College_,
THIS BOOK
IS INSCRIBED
BY THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
When I began the study of the Domestic Slave Trade of the Southern
States I had no idea of the conclusions as herein found. Especially
is this true of Chapters III. and IV. I have spared no pains to be
accurate in all statements of fact.
The material for this work was collected in the Yale University
Library in New Haven, Connecticut, and in the Congressional Library
at Washington. The sources used are to be found in the appended
bibliography. The most helpful were books of travel, newspapers and
periodicals, Statistics of Southern States and the United States Census
Reports.
W.H. Collins.
Claremont College,
Hickory, N.C.
February 22, 1904.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
A Sketch of the Rise of the Trade in African
Slaves and of the Foreign Slave Trade of the
Southern States 1
CHAPTER II.
The Causes of the Rise and Development of the
Domestic Slave Trade 21
CHAPTER III.
The Amount and Extent of the Trade 36
CHAPTER IV.
Were Some States Engaged in Breeding and Raising
Negroes for Sale? 68
CHAPTER V.
The Kidnapping and Selling of Free Negroes into
Slavery 84
CHAPTER VI.
Slave "Prisons," Markets, Character of Traders, etc. 96
CHAPTER VII.
Laws of the Southern States with Reference to
Importation and Exportation of Slaves 109
Bibliography 140
THE DOMESTIC SLAVE TRADE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.
CHAPTER I.
A SKETCH OF THE RISE OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN AFRICAN STATES AND OF THE
FOREIGN SLAVE TRADE OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.
It is not our intention nor is it within our province to enter into
details concerning the foreign slave trade. It seems, however, that
a brief account is necessary as introductory to the subject of the
Domestic Slave Trade.
The rise in Europe of the traffic in slaves from Africa was an incident
in the commercial expansion of Portugal. It was coeval and almost
coextensive with the development of commerce, and followed in the wake
of discovery and colonization.
The first name connected with it is that of Antonio Gonçalvez, who
was a marine under Prince Henry the Navigator. In 1441 he was sent to
Cape Bojador to get a vessel load of "sea-wolves" skins. He signalized
his voyage by the capture of some Moors whom he carried to Portugal.
In 1442 these Moors promised black slaves as a ransom for themselves.
Prince Henry approved of this exchange and Gonçalvez took the captives
home and received, among other things, ten black slaves in exchange
for two of them. The king justified his act on the ground that the
negroes might be converted to the Christian religion, but the Moors
could not.[1] Two years later the Company of Lagos chartered by the
king, and engaged in exploration on the coast of Africa, imported about
two hundred slaves from the islands of Nar and Tidar.[2] "This year
(1444) Europe may be said to have made a distinct beginning in the
slave trade, henceforth to spread on all sides like the waves [in]
stirred up water, and not like them to become fainter and fainter as
the circles widen."[3]
After the discovery of America, the islands which became known as the
Spanish West Indies were speedily colonized, and the inefficiency of
the Indian as a laborer in the mines there soon led to the substitution
of the negro. As early as 1502 a few were employed, and in 1517 Charles
V. granted a patent to certain traders for the exclusive supply of
4,000 negroes annually to the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica and
Porto Rico.[4]
So far as known John Hawkins was the first Englishman to engage in the
slave traffic. He left England for Sierra Leone with three ships and
a hundred men in 1562, and having secured three hundred negroes he
proceeded to Hispaniola where he disposed of them, and having had a
very profitable voyage, he returned to England in 1563. This appears
to have excited the avarice of the British Government. The next year
Hawkins was appointed to the command of one of the Queen's ships and
proceeded to Africa where in company with several others, it appears,
he engaged in the slave traffic.[5]
In 1624 France began the slave trade and later Holland, Denmark, New
England and other English colonies, though the leader in the trade and
the last to abandon it was Great Britain.[6]
The first slaves introduced into any of the English continental
colonies was in 1619 about the last of August when a piratical Dutch
frigate, manned chiefly by English, stopped at Jamestown, Virginia,
and sold the colonists twenty negroes.[7] Even for a long while after
this, it seems, importation of negroes was merely of an occasional or
incidental nature. Indeed, in 1648 only three hundred negroes were to
be found in Virginia.[8] However, several shiploads were brought in
between 1664 and 1671, and at the latter date Virginia had two thousand
slaves.[9] During the latter part of the seventeenth and the early
part of the eighteenth century the importation of negroes gradually
increased. In 1705, eighteen hundred negroes were brought in and in
1715 Virginia had twenty-three thousand. By 1723 they were being
imported into this colony at the rate of fifteen hundred or sixteen
hundred a year.[10]
In the eighteenth century Virginia sought from time to time to hinder
the introduction of slaves by placing heavy duties on them. Indeed,
from 1732 until the Revolution there were only about six months
in which slaves could be brought into Virginia free of duty.[11]
Nevertheless, in 1776 Virginia had 165,000 slaves.[12]
Though all the other colonies imported slaves more or less during the
same period, yet with the possible exception of South Carolina they
fell far short of the number imported by Virginia.
In November 1708, Governor Seymour of Maryland, writing to the English
Board of Trade, stated that 2,290 negroes were imported into that
colony from midsummer 1698 to Christmas 1707. He reported the trade to
be running very high, six or seven hundred having been imported during
the year. In 1712 there were 8,330 negroes in Maryland.[13] During
about the same time (midsummer 1699 to October 1708) Virginia imported
6,607[14] while a northern colony, New Jersey, imported only one
hundred and fifteen from 1698 to 1726.[15]
Du Bois says that South Carolina received about three thousand slaves a
year from 1733 to 1766.[16] She had forty thousand in 1740.[17]
In 1700 North Carolina had eleven hundred, 1732 six thousand,[18] and
in 1764 about thirty thousand.[19]
Until near the beginning of the eighteenth century it was rare that
the English continental colonies received a shipload of slaves direct
from Africa, and even these were usually brought in by some unlicensed
"interloper." It is very probable that most of the negroes imported
before this time were from Barbados, Jamaica and other West India
Islands.[20] But by the beginning of the eighteenth century it appears
that slaves were being imported more rapidly. After the Assiento,[21]
in 1713, England became a great carrier of slaves and so continued
until the Revolution.[22] The effect of this was very sensibly felt by
the colonies.
Even in the latter part of the seventeenth century some of the
colonies began to show their dislike by levying duties on further
importation. In the eighteenth century the colonial opposition to the
importation of slaves, arising probably from a fear of insurrection,
became much more pronounced. Heavy restrictions in the form of duties
were laid upon the trade. In some cases these were so heavy as would
seem to amount to total prohibition.[23] But the efforts on the part
of the colonies to restrict the trade were frowned upon and often
disallowed by the British Government.[24]
In 1754 the instructions to Governor Dobbs, of North Carolina, were:
"Whereas, acts have been passed in some of our plantations in America
for laying duties on the importation and exportation of negroes to the
great discouragement of the Merchants trading thither from the coast
of Africa, ... it is our will and pleasure that you do not give your
assent to or pass any law imposing duties upon negroes imported into
our Province of North Carolina."[25]
The colonies considered the slave trade so important to Great Britain
that at the dawn of the Revolution some of them appear to have
had hopes of bringing her to terms by refusing to import any more
slaves.[26]
In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence as submitted
by Jefferson, the king of Great Britain is arraigned "for suppressing
every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable
commerce."[27]
It has been estimated that in the year of the Declaration the whole
number of slaves in the thirteen colonies was 502,132, apportioned as
follows: Massachusetts, 3,500; Rhode Island, 4,376; Connecticut, 6,000;
New Hampshire, 627; New York, 15,000; New Jersey, 7,600; Pennsylvania,
10,000; Delaware, 9,000; Maryland, 80,000; Georgia, 16,000; North
Carolina, 75,000; South Carolina, 110,000; Virginia, 165,000.[28]
Two years after this, in 1778, Virginia took the lead against the
introduction of slaves by passing a law prohibiting importation
either by land or sea. This law made an exception of travellers and
immigrants.[29] Other States soon followed suit, passing laws to
restrict it temporarily or at specified places.[30] By 1803 all the
States and territories had laws in force prohibiting the importation of
slaves from abroad.[31] It must not be supposed, however, that these
were entirely effective. Indeed, the statement was made in Congress
Feb. 14, 1804, that in the preceding twelve months "twenty thousand"
enslaved negroes had been transported from Guinea, and by smuggling,
added to the plantation stock of Georgia and South Carolina.[32]
In 1798 an act of Congress establishing the territory of Mississippi
provided that no slave should be brought within its limits from
without the United States.[33] In 1804, when Louisiana was erected
into the territories of Louisiana and Orleans the provision was made
that only slaves which had been imported before May 1, 1798, might
be introduced into the territories and these must be the bona fide
property of actual settlers.[34]
Upon the petition of the inhabitants for the removal of the
restrictions, a bill was introduced in Congress, of which Du Bois says:
"By dexterous wording, this bill, which became a law March 2, 1805,
swept away all restrictions upon the slave trade except that relating
to foreign ports, and left even this provision so ambiguous that later
by judicial interpretations of the law, the foreign slave trade was
allowed at least for a time."[35]
South Carolina had even before this time (December 17, 1803), repealed
her law against the importation of slaves from Africa.[36] The trade
was thus open through this State for four years, during which time
39,075 slaves were imported through Charleston[37] alone.
The action of South Carolina in opening the slave trade forced the
question upon the attention of Congress. During 1805-6 it was much
discussed[38] but it was not until March 2, 1807, that a bill was
passed against it. This prohibited the importation of slaves after
January 1, 1808, under penalty of imprisonment for not less than five
nor more than ten years, and a fine of not less than $5,000 nor more
than $10,000.[39]
This law was not entirely effective. In 1810 the Secretary of the Navy
writing to Charleston, South Carolina, says: "I hear not without great
concern, that the law prohibiting the importation of slaves has been
violated in frequent instances near St. Mary's."[40]
Drake, a slave smuggler, says, that during the war of 1812 the business
of smuggling slaves through Florida into the United States was a
lively one.[41]
Vincent Nolte says that in 1813 "pirates captured Spanish and other
slave ships on the high seas and established their main depot and
rendezvous on the island of Barataria lying near the coast adjacent to
New Orleans. This place was visited by the sugar planters, chiefly of
French origin, who bought up the stolen slaves at from $150 to $200
per head when they could not have procured as good stock in the city
for less than $600 or $700. These were then conveyed to the different
plantations, through the innumerable creeks called bayous, that
communicate with each other by manifold little branches."[42]
In 1817-1819 slaves were very high and in great demand in the South. As
a consequence great numbers of them were smuggled in at various places.
The evidence of this is quite convincing.
Amelia Island and the town of St. Mary's became notorious as two of the
principal rendezvous of smugglers. A writer in "Niles' Register" in
1818 says that a regular chain of posts was established from the head
of St. Mary's river to the upper country, and through the Indian nation
by means of which slaves are hurried to every part of the country.
The woodmen along the river side rode like so many Arabs loaded with
slaves ready for market. When ready to form a caravan, an Indian alarm
was created that the woods might be less frequented, and if pursued in
Georgia they escaped to Florida.[43]
Mr. M'Intosh, Collector of the Port of Darien, in a letter in 1818,
says: "I am in possession of undoubted information that African and
West Indian negroes are almost daily illicitly introduced into Georgia,
for sale or settlement, or passing through it to the territories of the
United States."[44]
In 1817 it was reported to the Secretary of the Navy that "most of the
goods carried to Galveston are introduced into the United States, the
most bulky and least valuable regularly through the custom house;
the most valuable and the slaves are smuggled in through the numerous
inlets to the westward where the people are but too much disposed to
render them every possible assistance. Several hundred slaves are now
at Galveston."[45]
"Niles' Register," in 1818, quoting from the "Democrat Press," has a
very interesting account of how the law against the importation of
slaves was evaded at New Orleans: An agent would be sent to the West
Indies and even to Africa to purchase a cargo of slaves. On the return
when the slave ship got near Balize the agent would leave her, go in
haste to New Orleans and inform the proper authorities that a certain
vessel had come into the Mississippi, said to be bound for New Orleans
and having on board a certain number of negroes contrary to the law
of the United States. The vessel and cargo would be libelled and the
slaves sold at public auction. One half of the purchase money would go
to the informer and the other to the United States.[46] The informer
and agent was the same man and a partner in the transaction. This was
a profitable business and about ten thousand slaves a year are said to
have been thus introduced.[47]
It is quite evident that the illicit slave trade at this time was very
great. In 1819 Mr. Middleton, of South Carolina, said in Congress that
in his opinion thirteen thousand Africans were annually smuggled into
the United States, and Mr. Wright, of Virginia, estimated the number at
fifteen thousand.[48]
In 1818, 1819 and 1820 Congress passed acts to supplement and render
more effective the act of 1807.[49] Du Bois says that for a decade
after 1825 there appears little positive evidence of a large illicit
importation, but thinks notwithstanding that slaves were largely
imported.[50]
Captain J.E. Alexander in a book published in 1833 says that he was
assured by a planter of forty years' standing that persons in New
Orleans were connected with slave traders in Cuba, and that at certain
seasons of the year they would go up the Mississippi River and meet
slave ships off the coast. They would relieve these of their cargoes,
return to the main stream of the river, drop down in flat boats and
dispose of the negroes to those who wished them.[51] Thomas Powell
Buxton makes the statement, upon what he claims to be high authority,
that fifteen thousand negroes were imported into Texas from Africa in
one year, about 1838.[52]
The "Liberator" quoting the "Maryland Colonization Herald," says a
writer in that paper was assured, in 1838, by Pedro Blanco, one of the
largest slave traders on the coast of Africa, that for the preceding
forty years the United States had been his best market through the west
end of Cuba and Texas.[53]
"Between 1847 and 1853," says Du Bois, "the slave smuggler Drake had
a slave depot in the Gulf, where sometimes as many as sixteen hundred
negroes were on hand, and the owners were continually importing and
shipping."
Drake himself says: "Our island was visited almost weekly by agents
from Cuba, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and New Orleans,
... the seasoned and instructed slaves were taken to Texas or Florida,
overland, and to Cuba, in sailing boats. As no squad contained more
than half a dozen, no difficulty was found in posting them to the
United States, without discovery, and generally without suspicion....
The Bay Island plantation sent ventures weekly to the Florida Keys.
Slaves were taken into the great American swamps, and there kept till
wanted for market. Hundreds were sold as runaways from the Florida
wilderness. We had agents in every slave State, and our coasters were
built in Maine and came out with lumber. I could tell curious stories
... of this business of smuggling Bozal negroes into the United States.
It is growing more profitable every year, and if you should hang
all the Yankee merchants engaged in it, hundreds would fill their
places."[54]
Owing to the increasing demand, and to the high price of slaves from
1845 to 1860, and to the fact that the Southern people were becoming
more and more favorable to the reopening of the African slave trade,
thus making it easier to practice smuggling successfully, we have no
reason to doubt the truth of these accounts of this illicit traffic.
Stephen A. Douglas said in 1859 it was his confident opinion that
more than fifteen thousand slaves had been imported in the preceding
year, and that the trade had been carried on extensively for a long
while.[55] About 1860 it was stated that twenty large cities and towns
in the South were depots for African slaves and sixty or seventy
cargoes of slaves had been introduced in the preceding eighteen
months.[56] It was estimated in 1860 that eighty-five vessels which
had been fitted out from New York City during eighteen months of
1859 and 1860, would introduce from thirty thousand to sixty thousand
annually.[57]
From what has been said it seems to us certain that at least 270,000
slaves were introduced into the United States from 1808 to 1860
inclusive.[58] These we would distribute as follows: Between 1808 and
1820, sixty thousand; 1820 to 1830, fifty thousand; 1830 to 1840, forty
thousand; 1840 to 1850, fifty thousand and from 1850 to 1860 seventy
thousand. We consider these very moderate and even low estimates.
It will be seen later that these figures are of prime importance in
accounting for the presence of certain slaves in the States of the
extreme South.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: A. Helps: The Spanish Conquest of America, Vol. I., 30-32.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., 35-36.]
[Footnote 3: Helps: Sp. Con. of Am., Vol. I., 40.]
[Footnote 4: Edwards: British West Indies, Vol. II., 44. Brock: Va.
Hist. So. Collection, Vol. VI., 2.]
[Footnote 5: Edwards: British West Indies, Vol. II., 47-8.]
[Footnote 6: Ballaugh: Hist. of Slavery in Va., p. 4.]
[Footnote 7: John Smith: Hist. of Va., Vol. II., 39. Ballaugh: Hist. of
Slavery in Va., pp. 8-9. There has been some misunderstanding as to the
date, but Ballaugh makes it clear that 1619 is correct.]
[Footnote 8: Brock: Va. Hist. So. Coll., VI., 9. Ballaugh: Hist. Sl. in
Va., p. 9.]
[Footnote 9: Hening: States at Large, Vol. II., 515.]
[Footnote 10: Ballaugh: Hist. Sl. in Va., pp. 10-14.]
[Footnote 11: Ibid., p. 19.]
[Footnote 12: De Bow: Industrial Resources of the South, Vol. III.,
130.]
[Footnote 13: Scharf: Hist. of Md., Vol. I., 376-7.]
[Footnote 14: N.C. Colonial Records, Vol. I., 693.]
[Footnote 15: N.J. Archives, Vol. V., 152.]
[Footnote 16: Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 5.]
[Footnote 17: M'Call: Hist. of Ga., II., 125.]
[Footnote 18: N.C. Colonial Records, Vol. II., p. 17.]
[Footnote 19: Bassett: Slavery and Servitude in N.C., pages 20-22. In
J.H.U. Studies, Vol. XIV.]
[Footnote 20: Scharf: Hist. of Md., Vol. I., 376-7. N.C. Colonial
Records, Vol. I., 693.]
[Footnote 21: The Assiento was a treaty between England and Spain, by
which Spain granted England a monopoly of the Spanish colonial slave
trade for thirty years. Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 3.]
[Footnote 22: Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, p. 4-6.]
[Footnote 23: Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, Appendix A.]
[Footnote 24: Ibid., pp. 4-5.]
[Footnote 25: N.C. Col. Rec., Vol. V., 1118.]
[Footnote 26: Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, pp. 42-8.]
[Footnote 27: Ford: Jefferson's Works, Vol. II., 23.]
[Footnote 28: De Bow's: Industrial Resources, Vol. III., 130.
Liberator: Feb. 23, 1849.]
[Footnote 29: Hening; Statutes at Large, Vol. IX., p. 471.]
[Footnote 30: Chap. on Laws, C. VII., this book. Du Bois: Suppres. Sl.
Trade, Appendices A. and B.]
[Footnote 31: Ibid. Schouler: Hist. U.S., Vol. II., p. 56.
Chap. VII. on Laws, this volume.]
[Footnote 32: Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 1st Sess., 1000.]
[Footnote 33: Poore: Fed. and State Constitutions, Part 2, 1050.]
[Footnote 34: Ibid.]
[Footnote 35: Du Bois: Suppression of Slave Trade, pp. 89-90.]
[Footnote 36: McCord: S.C. Statutes at Large, Vol. VII., p. 449. Du
Bois: p. 240.]
[Footnote 37: Annals of Congress, 16 Con., 2nd Sess., p. 77.]
[Footnote 38: Du Bois: pp. 91-3.]
[Footnote 39: Annals of Cong., 9 Cong., 2 Sess., Appendix 1266-72.]
[Footnote 40: House Doc., 15 Cong., 2 Sess., IV., No. 84, p. 5.]
[Footnote 41: Drake: Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, 51, quoted by Du
Bois, p. 11.]
[Footnote 42: Vincent Nolte: Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres, p. 189.]
[Footnote 43: Niles' Reg., May 2, 1818.]
[Footnote 44: State Papers, 1st Sess., 16th Cong., Vol. 3, H. Doc. 42.]
[Footnote 45: Niles' Reg., Jan. 22, 1820.]
[Footnote 46: Ibid., Dec. 12, 1818, Louisiana had a law which provided
that slaves imported contrary to Act of Congress, March 2, 1807, should
be seized and sold for benefit of the State. (Hurd, Vol. II., p. 159.)
But the whole story is denied by another writer. (Niles' Reg., Dec. 12,
1818.)]
[Footnote 47: Niles' Reg., Dec. 12, 1818.]
[Footnote 48: Wm. Jay: Miscell. Writings on Slavery, p. 277.]
[Footnote 49: Du Bois: Pp. 118-122.]
[Footnote 50: Ibid., p. 128.]
[Footnote 51: Alexander: Transatlantic Sketches, p. 230.]
[Footnote 52: Buxton: The African Slave Trade, p. 44.]
[Footnote 53: Liberator: Aug. 18, 1854.]
[Footnote 54: Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, p. 98. Quoted by Du
Bois, p. 166.]
[Footnote 55: 27 Report Am. Anti-Slavery So., p. 20. Du Bois: P. 181.]
[Footnote 56: 27 Report Am. Anti-Sl. So., p. 21. Du Bois, p. 182.]
[Footnote 57: J.J. Lalor: Cyclopedia, Vol. III., p. 733.]
[Footnote 58: This is little more than the estimate which Du Bois made
before he wrote his book, "Suppression of the Slave Trade." "From 1807
to 1862 there were annually introduced into the United States from
1,000 to 15,000 Africans, and that the total number thus brought in in
contravention alike of humanity and law was not less than 250,000."
"Enforcement of Slave Trade Laws," in the Annual Report of the Am.
Hist. Assoc. for the year 1891, p. 173. The estimate of 270,000 in the
text was made after careful study, and before the writer knew of Du
Bois' estimate.]