Rothman, Joshua D.
The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America
Basic Books (New York)
2021
OUR SYNOPSIS: Joshua D. Rothman examines the prominent domestic slave trading firm of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, arguing that “Few traders were more successful, and none were more influential.” (4) He tracks their rise from the late 1820s to the top of the industry by the mid 1930s, locating their work at the center of the antebellum economy. These slave traders conducted their work openly and confidently, tapping into and accelerating systems of racial capitalism. He also makes efforts to amplify the human experiences of trafficked people, for example writing, “the size and scope of the trade as a whole was irrelevant when a slave trader darkened an enslaved person’s door. Because when that happened, the world cracked into pieces.” (47) In 1828, Armfield signed a lease on a townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia, and it became the headquarters for his slave trading partnership with Franklin and Ballard. The great extent to which their work became entrenched in networks of finance and credit exemplifies its prominent place in the mainstream capitalist economy.
BIG QUESTIONS:
What drew Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard to the slave trading business?
How did these traders conceive of the human lives that they extracted their profits from?
What made Alexandria a promising location for their slave trading firm’s headquarters?
FEATURE QUOTES:
“The stories of Franklin, Armfield, and Ballard trace the story of the domestic slave trade itself, the arcs of their lives and careers revealing the ebbs, flows, and transformations of the trade over time. Leading by example, they accelerated the trade’s metamorphosis from an avocation mostly pursued on a small scale in a short-term quest for extra cash into an organized profession that could bring its practitioners staggering profits, considerable power, and widespread regard.” (7)
“Among the many things Isaac Franklin came to understand was that money and slavery fed interconnected streams of relationships in constant motion. He saw how capital tenuously linked different parts of the United States, and how it flowed through the nation and around the world.” (14)
PRIMARY SOURCES:
American Anti-Slavery Society, “Slave Market of America,” broadside (New York, NY, 1836), https://lccn.loc.gov/2008661294.
BALTIMORE CONNECTIONS:
Austin Woolfolk and Baltimore's role in the domestic slave trade.
