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Accounting for the “Business of Suffering”:
The Practices and Problems of the Slave Trader in Antebellum Richmond
Jan Richard Heier,
Auburn University Montgomery
ABSTRACT. When the Congress barred the importation of slaves in 1808, it left the internal slave trade intact. The trade took on importance as the “Old South” saw their economy shift to a point that holding large numbers of slaves became too expensive. During this time, the large agricultural concerns shifted to the “New South” where cotton plantations needed the cheap labor provided by the institution of slavery. As this transition occurred, slave traders in Richmond created central slave market for the interstate slave trade as Old South planters chose the course of selling this valuable commodity rather than manumission and freedom. The records of two businesses, Dickinson and Hill and Hector Davis & Company that plied the slave trade in the Richmond reveal a primitive, yet sophisticated, process to account for the consignment, purchase, and sales of human merchandise in this haunting story of the “Business of Suffering.”
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