Reading 1: Determining the Facts

The Trade in Human Chattels

Between 1828 and 1836, the building located at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia, with its adjacent slave yards, served as headquarters for the largest and most profitable slave trading operation in the South, the firm of Franklin and Armfield, but it was during the 1820s and 30s when under occupation by Franklin and Armfield that this building served as the administrative center for the most “eminent slave-trading firm in the South.” Isaac Franklin, a native of Tennessee, and John Armfield, a relative by marriage, took advantage of the burgeoning market for enslaved persons in the southwestern states created as a result of the ban imposed on the importation of the enslaved into the United States in 1808. Whereas most slave traders operated on a relatively small scale, Franklin and Armfield were one of the few who became millionaires as a result of their dealing in enslaved people. “Few who exploited slave labor, rather than trading in it, profited that much.” ⁵

Franklin and Armfield had a network of offices throughout the South to facilitate the movement and selling of the enslaved. These offices were located in strategic locations for the purchasing and selling of the enslaved in accordance to the demand of the market; Alexandria was adjacent to an area with a surplus of enslaved people, including the states of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, whereas New Orleans and Mississippi where known as large centers for the purchase of enslaved people for nearby cotton plantations and throughout the rest of the southwestern states. Armfield was the agent at the Alexandria office who dealt with acquiring and readying them for transportation to the Deep South, whether by overland coffle or by sea. Franklin was in charge of the Natchez and New Orleans offices, the two main selling centers of the Deep South, where the enslaved would eventually be sold to area plantations.

Southern traders maintained private depots in the main trading centers of Baltimore, Richmond, Alexandria, Louisville, Lexington, and St. Louis. The firm of Franklin and Armfield was no exception. They maintained firm representatives in Richmond, Virginia with Rice C. Ballard acting as agent, and in Warrenton, Virginia where they were represented by J. M. Saunders and Company. In Frederick, Maryland, George Kephart and Company acted as their agent. In Baltimore, Maryland, James F. Purvis and Company was their representative while at Easton, Maryland, Thomas M. Jones was agent. Franklin and Armfield maintained agents at these various locations to survey the area for re-saleable enslaved persons at such places as estate and execution sales. From there, the enslaved were housed at the Alexandria slave pen to await transport to major trading centers in the Deep South, mainly New Orleans and Natchez. This transport normally took place between late summer and early fall.

The size and amenities located at the complex at the 1300 block of Duke Street spoke to the scale of success enjoyed by Franklin and Armfield. At the core was Armfield’s house and office. The Alexandria complex contained a kitchen for the enslaved persons, and a tailor shop to ready them for market. While at the pens, the enslaved were fed relatively better food and clothed well enough to make them attractive “commodities.” To maintain the health of those enslaved that might become ill while housed at the pens, a hospital/infirmary was located on the premises. Besides these “amenities” for the enslaved, they had an outdoor open courtyard where the male and female slaves could enjoy some fresh air and exercise; however, these areas were enclosed by tall brick walls. Also located at the complex was an enclosed courtyard, which is believed to have been the dining area for the enslaved. A business of this magnitude would also surely have maintained its own livery, an area where horses were kept. Another area in the complex housed the equipment necessary for the overland transport of enslaved persons, such as wagons and tents. As described by a visitor to the complex in 1835: “Passing out at a back gate, we entered another spacious yard, in which four or five tents were spread, and the large wagons, which were to accompany the next expedition, were stationed.” ⁶

According to a personal account retold in the Alexandria Gazette in the late 1820s, the nature of Franklin and Armfield’s business was such that:

Scarcely a week passes without some of these wretched creatures being driven through our streets. After having been confined, and sometimes manacled in a loathsome prison, they are turned out in public view to take their departure for the South. They children and some of the women are generally crowded into a cart or wagon, while others follow on foot, not unfrequently handcuffed and chained together. Here you may behold fathers and brothers leaving behind them the dearest objects of affection, and moving slowly along in the mute agony of despair – there the young mothers sobbing over the infants… ⁷

Armfield was the partner responsible for leading overland coffles of several hundred enslaved persons to the Deep South from Alexandria to Natchez during the summer months. The overland trek allowed the firm to move enslaved people west earlier than the shipping season, which occurred between October and April. Overland coffles were the preferred mode of transportation during the summer months because “of the lack of demand and fear that the drastic climate change would prove deadly to their property.”⁸ Moreover, with the coffles departing between mid- and late summer, the enslaved would arrive at market precisely when the selling season was about to start. The large “holding-facilities” at Duke Street combined with the overland slave coffles gave Franklin and Armfield the advantage of being able to purchase enslaved persons even during the “off-season.”

Franklin and Armfield operated on such a large scale that they owned their own “slavers” to transport the enslaved by sea. Although other sorts of “goods” were transported on these such as sugar, molasses, whiskey, and cotton, the primary use was for the transport of the enslaved. The firm annually exported between a thousand and twelve hundred enslaved persons to the southwest, necessitating an efficient way to transport many. The firm at one point owned three slavers. One of the slavers was aptly named the Isaac Franklin and as the firm grew, they acquired two other slavers, the Uncas and the Tribune. This is not to say that the firm did not use other slavers, which newspaper advertisements of the time attest to. However, owning a fleet of ships for business purposes was certainly not commonplace among many slave traders of the time.

According to an observer named Leavitt who visited the Alexandria slave pen in 1834, he wrote the following account of his experience aboard the Tribune:

Her name is the TRIBUNE. The Captain very obligingly took us to all parts of the vessel. The hold is appropriated to the slaves, and is divided into two apartments. The after-hold will carry about eighty-women, and the other about one hundred men. On either side were two platforms running the whole length; one raised a few inches, and the other half way up to the deck. They were about five or six feet deep. On these the slaves lie, as close as they can stow away.⁹

“Franklin and Armfield’s most important business innovation, however, involved purchasing and operating its own vessels in the coastal trade.” ¹⁰ This was instrumental to the success of the business since by cutting out the middleman, they saved on shipping costs. It also offered them “an advantage in the buying market.” ¹¹ “The money that was saved on transportation allowed Franklin and Armfield to offer more for its purchases than did its competitors and still make a profit.” ¹² They also compensated for losses by having a reliable shipping schedule that allowed them to attract more business, although their ships might not always sail at full capacity. This was a business innovation for the time. Whereas the ships initially sailed once a month, Franklin and Armfield increased embarkation from the port of Alexandria to twice a month, a clear indication of the success of the firm.

The business possessed a large amount of equipment for the maintenance and transport of enslaved persons, all of which speaks to the uniqueness of the trading firm. One that outwardly displayed its profitability and rank amidst other slave trading firms through the physical manifestation of its ships and the ownership of a sprawling complex at the 1300 block of Duke Street. This success did bear a non-monetary price since “along with wealth had come a modicum of stigma resulting from participation in a business that was tolerated only because it was regarded as a necessity.” ¹³

By 1836 Franklin had made his fortune as a slaver and “retired” leaving Armfield with the responsibility of settling the firm’s affairs. ¹⁴ Armfield continued to be active in the slave trading business until the 1850s, and was still settling the firm’s accounts even after Franklin passed away. After Franklin’s retirement from the slave trading business, the house continued to serve as a slave trading firm and was sold to George Kephart in 1836. Kephart maintained ownership for several years until it was once again transferred to the firm of Price, Birch and Company. The house was used as a slave trading firm until 1861 when Alexandria surrendered to Union troops. The slave pens were torn down in 1870 when the house once again transferred ownership. Armfield passed away in 1871.

Reading 1 was compiled from “Franklin and Armfield Office” (Alexandria, Virginia) National Historic Landmarks Program, 1976; James W. Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999); Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Vintage Books,1956); Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999); Prof. E. A. Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave-Trade in the United States: In A Series of Letters Addressed to the Executive Committee of the American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race (Boston: Light & Stearns, 1836); and Janice G. Artemel, The Alexandria Slave Pen: The Archeology of Urban Captivity (Washington, DC: Engineering Science, 1987); Steven Deyle, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Questions for Reading 1

1. What are some of the reasons for the development of an inter-state slave trade? How did the law affect the creation of an inter-state slave trade in the United States?


2. What are some of the reasons for the success enjoyed by the slave trading firm of Franklin and Armfield? Was this typical of other slave trading firms?


3. In what ways were the enslaved transported to the slave markets of New Orleans and Natchez? What determined the mode of transportation chosen? How do you think the enslaved persons felt during the journey? Explain your answer.


4. Do you think that the business of trading enslaved persons was well accepted in society? Why or why not?

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⁵ Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Vintage Books, 1956), 265.
⁶ Prof. E. A. Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave-Trade in the United States: In A Series of Letters Addressed to the Executive Committee of the American Union for the Relief and Improvement of the Colored Race (Boston: Light & Stearns, 1836), 140.
⁷ Quoted in James W. Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), 293.
⁸ Steven Deyle, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 100.
⁹ Quoted in Isaac Franklin, 38.
¹⁰ Deyle, Carry Me Back, 100.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² Ibid.
¹³ Stephenson, Isaac Franklin, 93.
¹⁴ Franklin retired to live the existence of a “wealthy planter” at Fairvue Plantation, located on the Cumberland River in Tennessee. He resided at Fairvue until his death in 1846.