Richmond’s Slave Trade

History and PlaceExported People

Africans Imported

• 1690-1775– White Virginians bought ca. 114,000 Africans

from Atlantic slave traders.• Purchases occurred along major rivers and in some

towns. Bermuda Hundred and Osborne’s Landing sales dominated in the Richmond-Petersburg region.

• Some secondary sales probably occurred in or near Richmond

• The Revolution interrupted, and Virginia legislation (1778) ended, legal importation.

Late 1760s Va. Gazette ads

Africans Imported

• To Richmond?– Not necessarily. Richmond was only a small village

before 1776.– British ships stayed within British customs districts.

“Upper James” customs district ended at Bermuda Hundred.

– Main market for Africans was in the rapidly expanding Piedmont area, 1740s to 1775.

– Most Richmond and Manchester sales were of Virginia-born people.

Customs Districts (Atlas of Early American History, ed. by Lester Cappon)

Escape?• RICHMOND, November 28, 1770. RUN away from the subscriber, three

negro fellows, imported this last summer from Africa in the ship Yanimarew. One is about 28 years of age, 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, slim made, long visaged, and of a very dark complexion; another of about the same age and complexion; the third about 26 years of age, 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high, well made. They are all a little pitted with the smallpox, and cannot speak so as to be understood in English. They went off well clothed, in the common dress of field slaves; osnabrug shirts, cotton jackets and breeches, plaid hose, and Virginia made shoes, with a dual blanket each. It is imagined that they were seen some time ago (along with three others of the same cargo) on Chicahominy, and it is supposed that they are still lurking about the skirts of that swamp. Whoever apprehends the said negroes, and delivers them to me at Richmond, or secures them so as I can get them, shall have FIFTY SHILLINGS reward for each, besides the allowance by law. JAMES BUCHANAN.

• Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon),Williamsburg, December 13, 1770.

Bermuda Hundred and Osborne’s Landing, Fry-Jefferson Map, 1751

Osborne’s Landing

Slave Traders Selling at Bermuda Hundred andOsborne's Landing, July 1752-May 1772

Shipped Number VirginiaShip from Africans Gazette MinchintonAnn Gally Old Calabar 240 7/10/1752 148-9Hampton Africa 273 7/30/1752 150-1Castleton Africa 70 8/21/1752 150-1Thomas Africa 60 11/4/1763 166-7Pompey Africa 81 11/4/1763 166-7Apollo Africa 197 6/27/1766 170-1Bassa Guinea 108 8/1/1766 170-1Black Prince Africa 120 9/5/1766 170-1Juba Angola 100 9/11/1768 172-3Amelia Angola 234 5/18/1769 172-3Industry Angola 160 5/14/1770 176-7Speirs** Gold Coast 15 6/21/1770 176-7Yanimarew Africa 240 8/16/1770 176-7Aston Africa 143 8/30/1770 176-7Martha* Africa 148 9/13/1770 176-7Polly Angola 430 5/7/1772 184-5Nancy** Windward & 250 7/9/1772 184-5

Gold CoastsThomas** Africa 200 7/30/1772 184-5Union** Gold Coast 280 8/20/1772 184-5Ships: 19 3349Average Africans per ship 176.2632

** Osborne's Landing

* Sale moved to Osborne’s Landing because many "will be deterred" (by smallpox episode on Yanimarew ) from coming to Bermuda Hundred.

Virginia Gazette, September 22, 1772

Virginia Gazette, July 10, 1762

Bermuda Hundred is more than a half hour’s drive from Richmond. Boats would obviously take much longer.

Bermuda Hundred is near the confluence of the Appomat-tox and James Rivers

Osborne’s Landing: 18 mile drive from Richmond.

Osborne’s Landing is near Dutch Gap and Henricus Historical Park.

Rocky Ridge (Manchester), July 15, 1766

Rocky Ridge, October 12, 1769

Rocky Ridge, November 22, 1769

Rocky Ridge, February 1, 1776

Richmond Slave Sales, February 1770 and July 1777

Impact of the Slave Trade (Atlas of Early American History, ed. by Lester Cappon.)

From importation to exportation Gen. C. C. Pinckney (S.C.), Constitutional Convention, 1787: Virginia “will gain by stopping the importations. Her slaves will rise in value, & she has more than she wants.”

1787-1807: Organized interregional slave trade began.

1792: Virginia Governor “Light Horse Harry” Lee learned major reason for eastern Virginia slave rebelliousness: the “practice of

severing husband, wife and children in sales.”

January 1, 1808: Importation of Africans is illegal throughout the U.S., leading Deep South to go to Virginia and other markets.

1840 to Civil War: Richmond dominated exportation of enslaved people from the Old Dominion.

Richmond area population, 1800Free Total Total Black %

White Slave Black Black Pop. of TotalCharles City 1954 3013 398 3411 5365 64%Chesterfield 6317 7852 319 8171 14488 56%Dinwiddie 6347 8353 674 9027 15374 59%Goochland 4480 4803 413 5216 9696 54%Hanover 5952 8192 259 8451 14403 59%Henrico 3999 4608 542 5150 9149 56%New Kent 2523 3622 218 3840 6363 60%Petersburg 1606 1487 428 1915 3521 54%Powhatan 2393 5031 345 5376 7769 69%Prince George 2795 4380 250 4630 7425 62%Richmond City 2837 2293 607 2900 5737 51%Total 41203 53634 4453 58087 99290 59%

* Dinwiddie includes Petersburg* Henrico excludes Richmond

Total for ALL of Virginia, 1790-1863: 515,075. One half = ca. 257,500.

Other scholars believe 300,000 were sold away from Virginia.

Copyright Phillip Troutman, 1998

http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/slavetrade/migrmaps.html

Estimates of enslaved Virginians' exportation to other states, 1790-1859Total Va %

Delaware Dist. Col. Kentucky Maryland N. Carolina S. Carolina Virginia South South1790-99 exp. 4523 0 0 22221 0 0 22767 49511 46%Slave Pop. 8897 0 12430 103030 100572 107094 292627 624650% state pop. 51% 0 0 22% 0 0% 8% 8%1800-09 exp. 3204 1123 0 19960 407 0 41097 65791 62%Slave Pop. 6153 3244 40343 105635 133296 146151 345796 780618% state pop. 52% 35% 0 19% 0.3% 0% 12% 8%1810-19 exp. 817 576 0 33070 13361 0 75562 123386 61%Slave Pop. 4177 5395 80561 111502 168824 196365 392516 959340% state pop. 20% 11% 0 30% 8% 0% 19% 13%1820-29 exp. 2270 1944 916 32795 20113 20517 76157 154712 49%Slave Pop. 4509 6377 126732 107397 204917 258475 425148 1133555% state pop. 50% 30% 1% 31% 10% 8% 18% 14%1830-39 exp. 1314 2575 19907 33753 52044 56683 118474 284750 42%Slave Pop. 3292 6119 165213 102994 245601 315401 469757 1308377% state pop. 40% 42% 12% 33% 21% 18% 25% 22%1840-49 exp. 912 2030 19266 21348 22481 28947 88918 183902 48%Slave Pop. 2605 4694 182258 89737 245817 327038 448987 1301136% state pop. 35% 43% 11% 24% 9% 9% 20% 14%1850-59 exp. 920 1222 31215 21777 22390 65053 82573 250728 33%Slave Pop. 2290 3687 210981 90368 288548 384984 472528 1453386% state pop. 40% 33% 15% 24% 8% 17% 17% 17%Total exported 13960 9470 71304 184924 130796 171200 505548 1112780 45%

Exportation by sea: Rocketts, by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1796

Manchester Docks (south bank) and Rocketts (north bank) 1865

Who exported ca. one-half million people from Virginia?

• Owners• Traveling slave dealers• Slave Traders

– in Alexandria– in Richmond– in Norfolk– in Petersburg

Richmond slave traders

• Robert Lumpkin (Creole)• Silas Omohundro• Dunlop, Moncure & Co.• Pulliam & Davis• Bacon Tait• George W. Apperson (Creole)• Hector Davis• Many others as well: “a cohort of professional

experts”

Lumpkin’s Jail

Robert Harold Gudmestad. "The Richmond Slave Market, 1840-1860." Master's thesis, University of Richmond, 1993.

Lumpkin’s Jail site, late

1830s to 1865

Broad St.

Michie map, 1865

Lumpkin

Lumpkin’s Jail

Lumpkin’s former property

1865 1876

Lumpkin’s Jail Archaeology proposal, 2005

Lumpkin’s Jail Mutual Assurance Society Policy renewal, 1851

Late 1860s drawing

Shockoe Valley, 1865

Manchester Docks (south bank) and Rocketts (north bank), 1865

Rocketts, 1865

Sold down the river?

• Many were.• But some could escape when a ship was wrecked.• Some escaped by revolting: The Creole Revolt,

1841 (after the Amistad case).• Lumpkin and other traders thereafter used ships

less often. They relied more on overland “ship-ment”—i.e. on foot in “coffles” and on railroad cars.

The ship

Creole: Original

List

The interstate slave trade cost

• Economic cost– Minimal for white Virginians. Often a gain.

• Social cost– White leaders sometimes claimed selling away

enslaved people improved Virginia.• Human “cost”

– There is no possible measurement.

Lewis Miller watercolor, 1853

Eyre Crowe painting, Richmond, 1853-4

First African Baptist Church

Gregg Kimball, American City, Southern Place, 135

•Prices: Robert Gudmestad, "The Richmond Slave Market, 1840-1860" (Master's thesis, University of Richmond, 1993), 125-6; estate inventories, Richmond city, 1858-1861; http://www.cwartillery.org/art-cost.html; “x 20”: Charles B. Dew.

2005 equivalent*: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

2005 equivalent**: http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html

Note: The inflation calculators used to compute 2005 equivalencies for 1860 prices can be misleading. In spite of seeming exact, they are only approximations.

Comparisons: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Peter V. Daniel’s books (1860 estate): $853. Sorrel mare and colt, $100 each. Piano with stool: $600. Rent of 3 tenements: $572. A 10-inch Confederate Columbiad artillery piece: $1,012.

Average Slave Prices, Richmond, 1860with estimated 2005 equivalent prices

1860 price x 20 2005 equiv.* 2005 equiv.**Men, 19-25 $1,556 $31,120 $32,900 $49,270Boys, 15-18 $1,367 $27,340 $28,100 $43,247Women, 16-20 $1,402 $28,040 $28,880 $44,355

1857: Richmond Enquirer estimated city slave auction receipts at $3,500,000 (2005 estimates: $71,897,935 or $102,642,411)

Another newspaper reported $4,000,000 in receipts. (2005 estimates: $82,169,069 or $$117,305,613)

Richmond area population, 1860Free Total Total Black %

White Slave Black Black Pop. of TotalCharles City 1,806 2,764 856 3,620 5,426 67%Chesterfield 10,019 8,616 643 9,259 19,278 48%Dinwiddie* 13,678 12,744 3,746 16,490 30,168 55%Goochland 3,814 5,845 703 6,548 10,362 63%Hanover 7,482 8,393 257 8,650 16,132 54%Henrico ** 14,350 8,342 1,014 9,356 23,706 39%New Kent 2,145 3,374 364 3,738 5,883 64%Powhatan 2,580 5,403 409 5,812 8,392 69%Prince George 2,899 4,997 515 5,512 8,411 66%Richmond City 23,635 11,699 2,576 14,275 37,910 38%Total 82,408 72,177 11,083 83,260 165,668 50%

* Dinwiddie includes Petersburg. ** Henrico excludes Richmond

Frederick Douglass on the Richmond Slave Jails

• Douglass speech, Halifax, Eng., December 7, 1859: “Slave marts and churches stood in the same market place. The groans of the slaves being sold in the shambles of Richmond were sometimes drowned by the pious shouting of their masters in the church close by.” Frederick Douglass Papers, Ser. 1, vol. 3 (1864-1880), 284.

In the early nineteenth century, there was “a basic reality of chattel slavery—that

slaveholding required slave trading.”

Adam Rothman, “The Domestication of the Slave Trade in the United States,” in The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas, ed. Walter Johnson (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2004), 33.

Remembering, Retracing, Memorializing, ReconcilingAncestors and Relatives

Ship manifests

Slave Traders’ records

Freedmen’s Bank

Narratives; Family stories

Distinctive names

Famous forced migrants

Madison Washington, Creole revolt leader

The Richmond Slave Trail

Shockoe

Reconciliation Statue