Introduction

Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints & Photograph Division.

Located on the outskirts of the nation’s capital during the nineteenth century, a three-story brick building served as the epicenter of the domestic slave trade in the United States from 1828 until 1841. Serving as a slave trading firm during the height of the domestic slave trade and well up to the Civil War, it was during the house’s occupation by the firm of Franklin and Armfield that the site had its greatest success in the selling of humans as commodities, morally placing Franklin and Armfield on the fringes of society. Although only the main building of a sprawling complex that once supported the daily operations of an effective and successful slave pen remains, tell tale signs in the basement of this structure hint at the probable use of this area as sleeping quarters for the enslaved who were temporarily housed here en route to market in the southwestern states.

Photograph by Caridad de la Vega.

Given the subsequent transformation of the block, one would be hard pressed to imagine that this unassuming three-story building was once the center of the biggest slave trading firm in the South; however, one can imagine that this building was not a welcome site to the thousands of enslaved persons brought here to await their eventual fate hundreds of miles away in Natchez and New Orleans. The firm of Franklin and Armfield consisted of three yards; the west yard held the men while the east yard contained the women; a kitchen, tailor’s shop and stable were also present at that time. High, white-washed walls described by a contemporary visitor to the site as resembling a penitentiary speak to the cleanliness and order that dominated the daily rhythm of life within a slave pen.

Serving as John Armfield’s residence, as well as the headquarters for the firm, from 1828 until 1836, the complex witnessed the increased success of the firm through the annual sale of thousands of enslaved persons, the purchase of various slave ships, and an extensive network of dealers in the major slave trading centers of the South. Few slave traders ever experienced the rate of success enjoyed by Franklin and Armfield, with estimated profits of nearly a million dollars calculated for Isaac Franklin and half a million for John Armfield by the time of their retirement from the slave trading business in 1841. The building represented prosperity for Franklin and Armfield while for the enslaved it represented something entirely different; the separation of families and the degradation endured by being bought and sold to the highest bidder.