The ledger and the chain : how domestic slave traders shaped America / Joshua D. Rothman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rothman, Joshua D., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slave trade--United States--History--19th century.

Slave trade.

Slave traders--Mississippi--Natchez--History--19th century.

Slave traders.

Slave traders--Virginia--Alexandria--History--19th century.

Enslaved persons--United States--Social conditions--19th century.

Enslaved persons.

Slavery--Economic aspects--United States.

Slavery.

Slavery--Economic aspects.

Social conditions.

History.

United States.

Enslaved persons--Social conditions.

Franklin and Armfield (Firm)--History.

Franklin and Armfield (Firm).

Franklin, Isaac, 1789-1846.

Franklin, Isaac.

Armfield, John, 1797-1871.

Armfield, John.

Ballard, Rice C. (Rice Carter), -1860.

Ballard, Rice C.

Virginia--Alexandria.

Mississippi--Natchez.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 491 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

How domestic slave traders shaped America

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Basic Books, Hachette Book Group, 2021.

Summary:

"In The Ledger and the Chain, prize-winning historian Joshua D. Rothman tells the disturbing story of the Franklin and Armfield company and the men who built it into the largest and most powerful slave trading company in the United States. In so doing, he reveals the central importance of the domestic slave trade to the development of American capitalism and the expansion of the American nation. Few slave traders were more successful than Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, who ran Franklin and Armfield, and none were more influential. Drawing on source material from more than thirty archives in a dozen states, Rothman follows the three traders through their first meetings, the rise of their firm, and its eventual dissolution. Responsible for selling between 8,000 and 12,000 slaves from the Upper South to Deep South plantations over a period of eight years in the 1830s, they ran an extensive and innovative operation, with offices in New Orleans and Alexandria in Louisiana and Natchez in Mississippi. They advertised widely, borrowed heavily from bankers and other creditors, extended long term credit to their buyers, and had ships built to take slaves from Virginia down to New Orleans. Slavers are often misremembered as pariahs of more cultivated society, but as Rothman argues, the men who perpetrated the slave trade were respected members of prominent social and business communities and understood themselves as patriotic Americans. By tracing the lives and careers of the nation's most notorious slave traders, The Ledger and the Chain shows how their business skills and remorseless violence together made the malevolent entrepreneurialism of the slave trade. And it reveals how this horrific, ubiquitous trade in human beings shaped a growing nation and corrupted it in ways still powerfully felt today"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Origins, 1789-1815

Choices, 1815-1827

Associates, 1827-1830

Currencies, 1830-1833

Dissolutions, 1833-1837

Reputations, 1837-1846

Legacies, 1846-1871

The Ledger And The Chain.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781541616615

1541616618

OCLC:

1184239325

Publisher Number:

99987450858