List of District of Columbia slave traders

"On the 4th day of December, 1815, (the day on which the session of congress commenced,) being at the seat of government of the United States, I was preparing to enjoy the first opportunity that had occurred to me, of beholding the assembled representatives of the American republic. As I was about to proceed to the building where the session was opened, my agreeable reverie was suddenly interrupted by the voice of a stammering boy, who, as he was coming into the house, from the street, exclaimed, 'There goes the Ge-Ge-orgy-men* with a drove o' niggers chain'd together two and two.' What's that, said I,—I must see,—and, going to the door, I just had a distant glimpse of a light covered waggon, followed by a procession of men, women and children, resembling that of a funeral. I followed them hastily; and as I approached so near as to discover that they were bound together in pairs, some with ropes, and some with iron chains (which I had hitherto seen used only for restraining beasts)." [*Torrey's note*: *On first hearing this epithet used, I was at a loss to account for its meaning. I have since observed that, in the middle states, the general title applied to slave-traders, indiscriminately, is *Georgia-men*.] ("View of the Capitol of the United States after the Conflagration of 1814" from Jesse Torrey's *A portraiture of domestic slavery in the United States*, published 1817)

Robey's 7th and 9th Street taverns and slave jails were pictured on this 1836 map produced by the American Anti-Slavery Society; the 7th Street property is listed as Neal's Jail

This is a list of slave traders working in the District of Columbia from 1776 until 1865, including traders operating in Alexandria, Virginia before the establishment of the District in 1800 and after the retrocession in 1847:

James H. Birch, District of Columbia and Alexandria, Va.^[1]
Jack Brinkley^[2]
James Childress and George A. Phifer^[3]
Samuel J. Dawson, Natchez, Miss.^[4] Washington, D.C. and Alabama^[5]
Jesse Dollerhide^[6]
Jilson Dove, Washington, D.C. and Montgomery County, Maryland^[7]^[8]
Dyer family, District of Columbia^[9]
Robert W. Fenwick, Washington, D.C.^[10]
Franklin & Armfield, Alexandria^[11]
John Gadsby^[12]
Haden, Washington, D.C.^[13]
John S. Hutcherson, Georgetown, D.C.^[14]
George Kephart, Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia^[15]
E. P. Legg, District of Columbia^[16]
Thomas Magruder, Washington, D.C.^[17]
Jesse Meek Jr., Washington, D.C. and Louisiana^[18]
George Miller, F Street^[19]
Joseph W. Neal, District of Columbia^[20]^[9]
Mellon, Alexandria^[21]
Thomas Milburn, Washington, D.C.^[22]
William H. Richards, Washington, D.C.^[23]^[11]
Tench Ringold, Washington, D.C.^[24]
John Edward Robey, Washington, D.C.^[25]^[22]^[26]
Washington Robey, Washington, D.C.^[27]^[28]
Joseph Semmes, Georgetown, D.C.^[29]
Simpson, Washington during the Jackson administration^[30]
Thomas Williams, Washington, D.C.,^[9]^[31]^[32] Virginia,^[33] and Vidalia, Miss.^[34]^[35]
Williams H. Williams^[35]
Williams, Washington, D.C.^[36]
Ann Young & Peter Hevener ^[37]

References

^ Bancroft (2023), pp. 50–51, 57.
^ "John A. Brown searching for his parents and siblings George, Mary Jane, Ellen Nora, and Peter Brown · Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery". informationwanted.org. Retrieved December 2, 2024.
^ "Cash". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. May 23, 1815. p. 3. Retrieved April 29, 2025.
^ "NOTICE". The Weekly Democrat. March 22, 1828. p. 6. Retrieved September 1, 2024.
^ "Cash in Market and Negroes Wanted, Samuel J. Dawson". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. August 12, 1830. p. 3. Retrieved May 30, 2024.
^ "Petition #20482809 – To the Honorable Judges of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia for the County of Washington". Race and Slavery Petitions, Digital Library on American Slavery (dlas.uncg.edu). August 13, 1828. Retrieved December 4, 2024.
^ "American Papers". Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald. April 14, 1832. p. 3. Retrieved May 10, 2024.
^ Genius of Universal Emancipation. B. Lundy. 1833. p. 128.
^ ^a ^b ^c Corrigan, Mary Beth (2001). "Imaginary Cruelties? A History of the Slave Trade in Washington, D.C." Washington History. 13 (2): 4–27. JSTOR 40073372.
^ "Look Here!". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. November 7, 1831. p. 2. Retrieved July 2, 2024.
^ ^a ^b "Selections: Wipe Out the Nation's Shame". The Liberator. April 11, 1862. p. 1. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
^ "John Gadsby: Hotelier and Slave Owner in the President's Neighborhood". WHHA (en-US). Retrieved December 18, 2024.
^ "Rosanna Patterson searching for her unnamed mother, as well as Sarah Paterson and Henry and George Holiday · Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery". informationwanted.org. Retrieved December 2, 2024.
^ "Negroes Wanted". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. June 9, 1826. p. 1. Retrieved May 29, 2024.
^ Schipper, Martin, ed. (2002). A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Papers of the American Slave Trade, Part 1. Rice Ballard Papers, Series C: Selections from the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries (PDF). Lexis Nexis. pp. vii–viii. ISBN 1-55655-919-4.
^ Genius of Universal Emancipation 1830-01-22: Vol 4 Iss 20. Internet Archive. Open Court Publishing Co. January 22, 1830.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^ "O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family". earlywashingtondc.org. Retrieved May 11, 2024.
^ "Cash for Negroes". United States' Telegraph. November 16, 1829. p. 1. Retrieved April 28, 2025.
^ Carter, Candy (March 2015). Thomas, William G. III (ed.). ""I Did Not Want to Go": An Enslaved Woman's Leap into the Capital's Conscience". O Say Can You See: Early Washington, D.C., Law & Family. Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Retrieved January 12, 2025.
^ Bancroft (2023), p. 150, 154–155.
^ "Maria Hentson searching for her son Lue Eller · Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery". informationwanted.org. Retrieved December 2, 2024.
^ ^a ^b http://mdhistory.msa.maryland.gov/msaref09/msa_scm6824/pdf/msa_scm6824-0079.pdf
^ Jay (1844), p. 39.
^ Wilson (2009), p. 65.
^ Colby (2024), p. 26.
^ "Robert Henderson (Nat Calbert) searching for his family · Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery". informationwanted.org. Retrieved December 1, 2024.
^ "Fontaine H. Pettis". The Liberator. December 13, 1834. p. 3. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
^ "Petition #20483304 Washington County, District of Columbia. September 20, 1833 Race and Slavery Petitions, Digital Library on American Slavery". dlas.uncg.edu. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
^ U.S. House District of Columbia Subcommittee on Government Operations and Metropolitan Affairs (1983). Rhodes Tavern (preservation and Restoration): Hearing and Markup Before the Subcommittee on Government Operations and Metropolitan Affairs of the Committee on the District of Columbia, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session, on H. Res. 532 ... November 30 and December 16, 1982. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 806.
^ "Jack Collins (Henry Warren) searching for his mother Katie Lee and sister Mariah · Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery". informationwanted.org. Retrieved December 2, 2024.
^ "Dear Sir: There is here in Washington a Slave jail, or "Negro Pen"..." Portland Press Herald. October 31, 1844. p. 2. Retrieved August 14, 2023.
^ "The Slave Dealer's Flag". The Evening Post. October 31, 1844. p. 2. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
^ "Negroes in Jail". Weekly Columbus Enquirer. August 24, 1842. p. 1. Retrieved June 23, 2024.
^ "Negroes for Sale". The Natchez Daily Courier. December 4, 1838. p. 2. Retrieved August 21, 2023.
^ ^a ^b Pritchett, Jonathan B. (1997). "The Interregional Slave Trade and the Selection of Slaves for the New Orleans Market". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. 28 (1): 57–85. doi:10.2307/206166. ISSN 0022-1953. JSTOR 206166.
^ Brown, John (1855). Chamerovzow, L. A (ed.). Slave life in Georgia: a narrative of the life, sufferings, and escape of John Brown, a fugitive slave, now in England. London: W. M. Watts. pp. 108–126. hdl:2027/coo.31924032774527. Retrieved September 5, 2023 – via HathiTrust.
^ Jones-Rogers (2019), pp. 170–171.

Sources

Bancroft, Frederic (2023) [1931]. Slave Trading in the Old South. Southern Classics Series. Introduction by Michael Tadman. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-64336-427-8.
Colby, Robert K. D. (2024). An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197578261.001.0001. ISBN 9780197578285. LCCN 2023053721. OCLC 1412042395.
Fitzpatrick, Benjamin Lewis (December 2008). Negroes for Sale: The Slave Trade in Antebellum Kentucky (Ph.D. thesis). University of Notre Dame. doi:10.7274/pn89d50750n.
Hedrick, Charles Embury (1927). Social and Economic Aspects of Slavery in the Transmontane Prior to 1850. George Peabody College for Teachers. Contributions to education.no. 46. Nashville, Tennessee: George Peabody College for Teachers.
Jay, William (1844). A View of the Action of the Federal Government, In Behalf of Slavery. Utica, N.Y.: J.C. Jackson.
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E. (2019). They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-21866-4.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1853). A key to Uncle Tom's cabin: presenting the original facts and documents upon which the story is founded. Boston: J. P. Jewett & Co. LCCN 02004230. OCLC 317690900. OL 21879838M.
Wilson, Carol (2009) [1994]. Freedom at Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780–1865. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813149790. JSTOR j.ctt130j5m9. LCCN 93021012. OCLC 900344359.

List of District of Columbia slave traders

See also

References

Sources

Further reading