"In Pressing Need of Cash": Gender, Skill, and Family Persistence in the Domestic Slave Trade

Abstract

Charlotte grew up on a Rockingham County, Virginia, plantation with her parents and sixteen brothers and sisters. Her family somewhat favored by their slaveholder Charles L. Yancy because they represented nearly half of his enslaved population. They spent most of day in fields cultivating wheat, corn, rye, hemp, and tobacco; her father Novel head who managed agricultural laborers. Their lives changed when Yancy, who had developed a drinking problem, decided to employ an overseer. Suddenly, plantation profits decreased and Charlotte and her family were subjected to four overseers over course of two or three years. Unfortunately, Yancy's financial troubles continued and he himself in pressing need of cash, so Charlotte sold to highest bidder on auction block in Richmond. (1) Charlotte's sale greatly affected her parents and siblings. Her mother, Mary Francis, show[ed] all symptoms of a distracted mind and a broken heart and her father laboured under great distress. Yancy noticed a change in Novel and asked him to share his feelings; to he replied: Why, master, if I should see one of your daughters sold away from you, and you did not ever expect to see her again in life, I could give a pretty close guess how you felt; and now, if you can just place yourself in my stead, and think how you would feel at a separation such as I had to endure, and then my other children weeping around me, you can tell what matter is with me. (2) As dialogue continued, distressed father reminded slaveholder of his continued faithfulness, hoping that Yancy would understand reason for his sadness. Acknowledging Novel's loyalty, Yancy justified his decision to sell Charlotte, claiming, If I have to sell, and must sell, I have to sell to best advantage. At age 19, and a skilled field hand, Charlotte one of most valuable laborers on estate and brought the heaviest price; Yancy believed he had no choice but to sell her first. (3) Not quite convinced by rationale, Charlotte's brother J. A. Banks entered conversation and requested that Yancy sell him next so that his parents would not have to witness repeated acts of sale. To Yancy replied, You are about 19 years of age, and most valuable man I have on farm. I cannot spare you, but I have more young women than I need. I must sell some of them. (4) Southern slaveholders purchased, sold, and traded enslaved black laborers on a daily basis throughout antebellum period. Historians interested in economics of slavery have uncovered a wealth of material relating to domestic slave as well as transatlantic trade, and have debated overall profitability of inhuman bondage. (5) More recently, Steven Deyle's prizewinning study Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life examined both long-distance interstate trade and extensive local or intrastate trade. Far from being marginal to southern economy, slave system an essential element in commercial life. Deyle found that in 1860, commercial value of enslaved population was roughly three times greater than total amount of all capital, North and South combined, invested in manufacturing, almost three times amount invested in railroads, and seven times amount invested in banks. With regard to slaveholding states, By 1860 slave had even surpassed assessed value of real estate. Historian Herbert Gutman had argued in 1975 that once every 3.5 minutes, 10 hours a day, 300 days a year, for 40 years, a human being bought and sold in antebellum South. However, since that time, historians documenting domestic slave have estimated that Gutman's figures were too low. (6) One reason this species of property so valuable because from 1820 to 1860 prices were increasing. …