slave trade (domestic) — Bunk History

Her Property Transactions: White Women and the Frequency of Female Ownership in the Antebellum Era

White women were especially likely to be owners involved in transactions with enslaved women, where they were listed as owners in nearly 40% of transactions.

by Benton Wishart, Trevor D. Logan via National Bureau Of Economic Research on May 31, 2024

An Unholy Traffic: How the Slave Trade Continued Through the US Civil War

In a new book, Robert KD Colby of the University of Mississippi shows how the Confederacy remained committed to slavery.

by Rich Tenorio via The Guardian on April 28, 2024

A historical marker for the Broad Street site of domestic slave trade, foregrounding an image of the Exchange Building, located in Charleston, South Carolina.

Activists Have Long Called for Charleston to Confront Its Racial History. Tourists Now Expect It.

Tourist interest is contributing to a more honest telling of the city’s role in the US slave trade. But tensions are flaring as South Carolina lawmakers restrict race-based teachings.

by Jennifer Berry Hawes via ProPublica on July 29, 2023

Georgetown University building.

Confronting Georgetown’s History of Enslavement

In “The 272,” Rachel L. Swarns sets out how the country’s first Catholic university profited from the sale of enslaved people.

by Paul Elie via The New Yorker on June 27, 2023

A page of the 1838 deal by the Jesuits to sell 272 enslaved people.

The Families Enslaved by the Jesuits, Then Sold to Save Georgetown

In 1838, leaders of the Catholic order faced opposition from their own priests, but pressed forward with the sale of 272 human beings anyway.

by Rachel L. Swarns via Retropolis on June 15, 2023

1836 lithograph of a slave trader marching enslaved people to be sold.

Partners in Brutality

New books investigate the brutality of the internal slave trade by focusing on businesses, and examine the role of white women in enslaving Black people.

by Nicholas Guyatt via New York Review of Books on October 18, 2021

Handcuffs with chain of $

The Men Who Turned Slavery Into Big Business

The domestic slave trade was no sideshow in our history, and slave traders were not bit players on the stage.

by Joshua D. Rothman via The Atlantic on April 20, 2021

Original bars on a window are seen in the basement of the Freedom House Museum in Alexandria, Va.

The Deep Cruelty of U.S. Traders of Enslaved People Didn’t Bother Most Americans

Debunking the myths of the domestic slave trade.

by Joshua D. Rothman via Made By History on April 14, 2021

A Slave Trader’s Office Decor and the Pornography of Capitalism

In the antebellum South, the slave trader’s office was a site of desire.

by Jeff Forret via The Panorama on February 17, 2020

In 1870, Henrietta Wood Sued for Reparations—and Won

The $2,500 verdict, the largest ever of its kind, offers evidence of the generational impact such awards can have

by W. Caleb McDaniel via Smithsonian on September 2, 2019

Beyond the Middle Passage

Intra-American trafficking magnified slavery’s impact.

by Robert Pollie via Inqury @ UC Santa Cruz on July 1, 2018

Enslaved people being marched from Virginia to Tennessee.

Retracing Slavery's Trail of Tears

America's forgotten migration – the journeys of a million African-Americans from the tobacco South to the cotton South

by Edward Ball via Smithsonian on November 1, 2015

A drawing of Confederate soldiers on horseback violently forcing Black people to walk south.

After Confederate Forces Took Their Children, These Black Mothers Fought to Reunite Their Families

Confederates kidnapped free Black people to sell into slavery. After the war, two women sought help from high places to track down their lost loved ones.

by Robert K. D. Colby via Smithsonian on February 6, 2025

“The Caring Hand,” by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber, sculpture of a hand holding a tree.

Bryan Stevenson Reclaims the Monument, in the Heart of the Deep South

The civil-rights attorney has created a sculpture park, indicting the city of Montgomery—a former capital of the domestic slave trade.

by Doreen St. Félix via The New Yorker on March 25, 2024

Drawing of Josiah Henson

The Man Who Became Uncle Tom

Harriet Beecher Stowe said that Josiah Henson’s life had inspired her most famous character. But Henson longed to be recognized by his own name.

by Clint Smith via The Atlantic on September 8, 2023

Sea Captains drinking alcohol

Ships Going Out

In "American Slavers," Sean M. Kelley surveys the relatively unknown history of Americans who traded in slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

by James Oakes via New York Review of Books on August 31, 2023

Lauren Davila, standing in front of a historical marker for slave auctions, in Charleston, South Carolina.

How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S.

The find yields a new understanding of the enormous harm of such a transaction.

by Jennifer Berry Hawes via ProPublica on June 16, 2023

Newspaper clipping from an Abolitionist paper

The Hypocrisy of This Nation!

How abolitionists viewed the American flag.

by Matthew J. Clavin via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 14, 2023

Illustration of yellow fever victims in pain on park bench while another man flees

How Yellow Fever Intensified Racial Inequality in 19th-Century New Orleans

A new book explores how immunity to the disease created opportunities for white, but not Black, people.

by Kathryn Olivarius, Karin Wulf via Smithsonian on April 19, 2022

Illustration of the shadow of Mary Lumpkin over the blueprint of Virginia Union University

The Enslaved Woman Who Liberated a Slave Jail and Transformed It Into an HBCU

Forced to bear her enslaver's children, Mary Lumpkin later forged her own path to freedom.

by Kristen Green via Smithsonian on April 4, 2022

A large federal style brick house, the William Paca House in Annapolis, Md.

I Searched for Answers About My Enslaved Ancestor. I Found Questions About America

'Did slavery make home always somewhere else?'

by Imani Perry via TIME on January 13, 2022

Lithograph of the waterfront in Alexandria, Virginia 1836.

The Life and Death of an All-American Slave Ship

How 19th century slave traders used, and reused, the brig named Uncas.

by Joshua D. Rothman, Benjamin Skolnik via Slate on December 4, 2021

Photo of Jefferson Davis

The Southern Slaveholders Dreamed of a Slaveholding Empire

Antebellum slaveholders weren't content with an economic and social system based on trafficking in human flesh in the South alone.

by Arvind Dilawar, Kevin Waite via Jacobin on September 21, 2021

Artistic photo of John Marshall

America’s ‘Great Chief Justice’ Was an Unrepentant Slaveholder

John Marshall not only owned people; he owned many of them, and aggressively bought them when he could.

by Paul Finkelman via The Atlantic on June 15, 2021

Immigrant mother and child embracing

As American as Family Separation

Though the cruelties of the Trump administration’s “Zero Tolerance” policy were unique, they were part of an American tradition of taking children from parents.

by Hari Kunzru via New York Review of Books on June 9, 2021

Graphic illustration of a tilted white column with a pointed white top, resembling a race, against a red background. The words: "Media Monuments and Hooded Headlines" are printed within the triangular top.

American Journalism’s Role in Promoting Racist Terror

History must be acknowledged before justice can be done.

by Channing Gerard Joseph via The Nation on April 19, 2021

Priest standing at pulpit. Caption: Timothy Kesicki, S.J., apologizes for the Jesuits’ sin of owning and selling people. Gaston Hall, Georgetown University, April 18, 2017.

The Jesuits and Slavery

Despite extensive historiography, most people are not aware that the Society of Jesus owned people.

by Adam Rothman via Journal Of Jesuit Studies on December 15, 2020

Image of a Black man wearing a black mask saying "I Can't Breathe"

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

by Elise A. Mitchell, Ayah Nuriddin, Antoine S. Johnson via Black Perspectives on August 12, 2020

A circa 1830 illustration of a slave auction in America. Rischgitz/Hulton Archive—Getty Images.

'The Slaves Dread New Year's Day the Worst': The Grim History of January 1

New Year's Day used to be widely known as "Hiring Day" or "Heartbreak Day"

by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on December 27, 2019

Enslaved men in chains, from the cover of "Williams' Gang" by Jeff Forret.

The History of Black Incarceration Is Longer Than You May Think

Enslaved woman Charlotte thought she was "free" from the slaveowner. She was wrong.

by Jeff Forret via HNN on November 24, 2019

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