Slavery in America:The Montgomery Slave Trade

Equal Justice Initiative

SlavEry In amErIca

Beginning in the seventeenth century, millions ofAfrican people were kidnapped, enslaved, and shippedacross the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas under horrificconditions that frequently resulted in starvation anddeath. Nearly two million people died at sea during theagonizing journey.

As American slavery evolved, an elaborate andenduring mythology about the inferiority of black peoplewas created to legitimate, perpetuate, and defendslavery. This mythology survived slavery’s formalabolition following the Civil War.

In the South, where the enslavement of black peoplewas widely embraced, resistance to ending slaverypersisted for another century following the passage ofthe Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. Today, 150 yearsafter the Emancipation Proclamation, very little has beendone to address the legacy of slavery and its meaning incontemporary life.

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“Taken on board ship, the naked Africans were shackledtogether on bare wooden boards in the hold, and packed sotightly that they could not sit upright. During the dreaded Mid-Passage (a trip of from three weeks to more than three months). . . [t]he foul and poisonous air of the hold, extreme heat, menlying for hours in their own defecation, with blood and mucuscovering the floor, caused a great deal of sickness. Mortalityfrom undernourishment and disease was about 16 percent. Thefirst few weeks of the trip was the most traumatic experience forthe Africans. A number of them went insane and many becameso despondent that they gave up the will to live. . . . Often theycommitted suicide, by drowning or refusing food or medicine,rather than accept their enslavement.”

JOhN W. BlASSINgAME, ThE SlAvE COMMuNITy 7 (1979).

Imprisoned men at Maula Prison in Malawi are forced to sleep “like the enslaved on a slaveship.” (Joao Silva/The New York Times/Redux.)

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Though the reality of American slavery was often brutal,barbaric, and violent, the myth of black people’s racial inferioritydeveloped and persisted as a common justification for thesystem’s continuation.

Slavery deprived the enslaved person of any legal rights orautonomy and granted the slaveowner complete power over theblack men, women, and children legally recognized as hisproperty.

Enslaved African children taken aboard HMS Daphne, November 1868. (The NationalArchives of the UK: ref. FO 84/1310 (b).)

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Opposite: Many enslaved and orphaned children were abandoned during the turmoil ofthe Civil War. (George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film.)

The racialized caste system of American slavery wasunique in many respects from the forms of slavery thatexisted in other parts of the world. In the Spanish andPortugese colonies, for example, slavery was a classcategory or form of indentured servitude – an “accident”of individual status that could befall anyone and couldbe overcome after a completed term of labor orassimilation into the dominant culture.

American slavery began as such a system. When thefirst Africans were brought to the British colonies in 1619on a ship that docked in Jamestown, virginia, they heldthe legal status of “servant.” But as the region’seconomic system became increasingly dependent onforced labor, and as racial prejudice became moreingrained in the social culture, the institution ofAmerican slavery developed as a permanent, hereditarystatus centrally tied to race.

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Enslaved people suffered extreme physical violence aspunishment for running away, failing to complete assigned tasks,visiting a spouse living on another plantation, learning to read,arguing with whites, working too slowly, possessing anti-slaverymaterials, or trying to prevent the sale of their relatives.

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Opposite: An enslaved man, Private Gordon, was beaten so frequently that the multiplewhippings left graphic scars depicted in this 1863 photograph. (Donated by Corbis.)

Enslaved people who have just escaped from a Virginia plantation in 1862. (Library ofCongress.)

The Domestic Slave Trade

In 1808, the united States Congress banned the importationof slaves from Africa. At the same time, the high price of cottonand the development of the cotton gin caused the demand forslave labor to skyrocket in the lower South. The Domestic SlaveTrade grew to meet this demand. Over the next fifty years, slavetraders forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of enslavedpeople from the upper South to Alabama and the lower South.Between 1808 and 1860, the enslaved population of Alabamagrew from less than 40,000 to more than 435,000. Alabama hadone of the largest slave populations in America at the start of theCivil War.

Slave Transportation to montgomery

In order to meet the high demand for slaves in Alabama inthe early 1800s, slave traders chained African Americanstogether in coffles and forced them to march hundreds of milesfrom the upper South to the lower South, includingMontgomery. The overland transportation of enslaved peopleby foot was slow and expensive. By the 1840s, slave tradersbegan to take advantage of two new modes of transportation:the steamboat and the railroad. Steamboats carried slaves fromMobile and New Orleans up the Alabama River to Montgomery.Rail routes constructed with slave labor connectedMontgomery’s train station to West Point, georgia, and linesextending to the upper South. hundreds of enslaved peoplebegan arriving by rail and by boat each day in Montgomery,turning the city into a principal slave trading center in Alabama.Enslaved people who arrived at the riverfront or at the trainstation were paraded up Commerce Street to be sold in the city’sslave markets.

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Alabama River

Train Station

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EJI

Railroad Slave Trade Importation

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Overland Slave Importation Route

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Downtown Montgomery, Alabama

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The montgomery Slave Trade

Montgomery had grown into one of the most prominent slavetrading communities in Alabama by 1860. At the start of the CivilWar, the city had a larger slave population than Mobile, NewOrleans, or Natchez, Mississippi. Montgomery attracted agrowing number of major slave traders whose presencedominated the city’s geography and economy. The Montgomeryprobate office granted at least 164 licenses to slave tradersoperating in the city from 1848 to 1860. Slave trader’s officeswere located primarily along Commerce Street and Market Street(now Dexter Avenue). Over time, Montgomery became one ofthe most important and conspicuous slave trading communitiesin the united States. After the Alabama legislature banned freeblack people from residing in the state in 1833, enslavement wasthe only legally authorized status for African Americans inMontgomery.

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(Courtesy of The New York Public Library, www.nypl.org.) (Opposite: Equal Justice Initiative photo.)

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Warehouses Used in the Slave Trade

Commerce Street was central to the operation ofMontgomery’s slave trade. Enslaved people were marched inchains up the street from the riverfront and railroad station tothe slave auction site or to local slave depots. Warehouses werecritical to the city’s slave trade. Slave traders confined enslavedpeople in warehouses until they could be sold during slaveauctions. At 122 Commerce Street was a very large warehouseowned by John Murphy, who provided support to slave tradersin the city and built the Murphy house on Bibb Street. TheCommerce Street warehouse was used in the 1850s by slavetraders like h.W. Farley, who advertised the sale of enslavedchildren, such as a boy “about fourteen, very likely and sprightly.”The warehouse remained in the hands of owners involved in theslave trade until the end of the Civil War.

montgomery’s Slave Depots

Montgomery slave traders operated depots where enslavedmen, women, and children were confined. The slave depotsfunctioned as active trading sites and as detention facilitieswhere the enslaved were held captive until they were auctionedat Court Square. The city had four major slave depots. Three ofthe depots lined Market Street (now Dexter Avenue) betweenlawrence and McDonough and were owned by Mason harwell,S.N. Brown, and E. Barnard & Co. In 1859, Montgomery had asmany slave depots as it did hotels and banks. The slave tradecontinued to thrive in Montgomery even during the Civil War. Aslate as 1864, Thomas l. Frazer opened a new slave depot onMarket Street and sold boys and girls “of all descriptions.”

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During the last twenty years of American slavery,no slave market was more central or conspicuousthan the one in Montgomery, Alabama.

Court Square in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, looking down Commerce Street. (Ala. Dep’t. Archives and History, Montgomery, Ala.)

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montgomery’s Slave Traders

vast plantations with large slave populations emerged in Al-abama’s Black Belt beginning in 1820. Montgomery’s proximityto the Black Belt made the city a center for slave trading in Ala-bama. From the river, down Commerce Street to Market Street,slave traders worked next door to shop owners and other busi-ness establishments. E. Barnard & Co. operated at 88 CommerceStreet. Mason harwell, one of Montgomery’s most active slavetraders, kept an office at 21 Market Street (now Dexter Avenue).On a single day, harwell sold hundreds of enslaved men, women,and children alongside livestock. Across the South, slave traderswere generally among the wealthiest and most influential citi-zens in their communities.

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Illustration of Montgomery’s slave market published in 1861. (Donated by Corbis.) Opposite: Severalslave depots could be found in downtown Montgomery advertising people for sale. (Ala. Dep’t.Archives and History, Montgomery, Ala.)

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16 Montgomery, Alabama, 2011. (Photo by Stephen Chu.)

Slavery in America traumatized and devastated millions ofpeople. It created narratives about racial difference that stillpersist today. It also fostered bigotry and racial discriminationfrom which we have yet to fully recover. In learning more aboutslavery, we can learn more about ourselves, our past, andhopefully, our future. By strengthening our understanding ofracial history, we can create a different, healthier discourse aboutrace in America that can lead to new and more effectivesolutions.

EJI’s race and Poverty Project

The Equal Justice Initiative is a private, non-profit organizationthat provides legal assistance to the poor, the incarcerated, thecondemned, children prosecuted as adults in the criminal justicesystem, and communities marginalized by bias, discrimination,or poverty.

Our project on race and poverty examines today’s issuesthrough the lens of America’s racial history. The legacy of slavery,racial terror, and legally supported abuse of racial minorities inthe united States is not well understood. We believe that civiland human rights are often compromised by our failure toconfront our history with greater clarity and thoughtfulness.

This report is designed as one of several tools for learningmore about racial history. Additional materials on the legacy ofracial injustice, and information about the work of EJI, can befound at www.eji.org.

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© 2013 by Equal Justice Initiative. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, modified, ordistributed in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without express prior written permission of EqualJustice Initiative (EJI). EJI is a nonprofit law organization located in Montgomery, Alabama.