Somewhere recently I had read that my home state, Missouri, had been a slave-breeding state. But, I found that thinly-supported assertion to be improbable, given my study of Missouri history and my 54-years of living, visiting, working, exploring here. In no way could I be, or have been, ignorant of such, I snorted!
Yet, when reading Chapter XI in fellow Missourian's, William Wells Brown's book, "My Southern Home; Or, The South and Its People (1880)," his moving autobiography, I see:
"The invention of the Whitney cotton gin, nearly fifty years ago, created a wonderful rise in the price of slaves in the cotton states. The value of able-bodied men, fit for field hands, rose from five hundred to twelve hundred dollars, in the short span of five years. In 1850, a prime field hand was worth two thousand dollars . The price of a woman rose in proportion; they being valued at about three hundred dollars less each than the men. The change in the price of slaves caused a lucrative business to spring up, both in the breeding of slaves and the selling of them to the States needing their services. Virginia , Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina became the slave raising sections; Virginia, however, was always considered the banner State. To the traffic in human beings, more than to any other of its evils, is the institution indebted for its overthrow...
"The removal of Dr. Gaines from 'Poplar Farm' to St. Louis , gave me an opportunity of seeing the worst features of the internal slave trade. For many years, Missouri drove a brisk business in the selling of her sons and daughters, the greater number of whom passed through the city of St. Louis. For a long time , James Walker was the principal speculator in this species of property . The early life of this man had been spent as a drayman, first working for others, then for himself, and eventually purchasing men who worked with him. At last, disposing of his horses and drays, he took his faithful men to the Louisiana market and sold them. This was the commencement of a career of cruelty, that, in all probability , had no equal in the annals of the American slave trade.
"A more repulsive-looking person could scarcely be found in any community of bad-looking men than Walker. Tall, lean, and lank, with high cheek-bones , face much pitted with the small-pox, gray eyes, with red eyebrows and sandy whiskers, he indeed stood alone without mate or fellow in looks...."
P.754-755, WILLIAM WELLS BROWN : CLOTEL, AND OTHER WORKS (2014)
https://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/historyculture/african-american-life-in-saint-louis-1804-through-1865.htm
Sunday, March 27, 2016
MISSOURI A SLAVE BREEDER STATE
Somewhere recently I had read that my home state, Missouri, had been a slave-breeding state. But, I found that thinly-supported assertion to be improbable, given my study of Missouri history and my 54-years of living, visiting, working, exploring here. In no way could I be, or have been, ignorant of such, I snorted!
Yet, when reading Chapter XI in fellow Missourian's, William Wells Brown's book, "My Southern Home; Or, The South and Its People (1880)," his moving autobiography, I see:
"The invention of the Whitney cotton gin, nearly fifty years ago, created a wonderful rise in the price of slaves in the cotton states. The value of able-bodied men, fit for field hands, rose from five hundred to twelve hundred dollars, in the short span of five years. In 1850, a prime field hand was worth two thousand dollars . The price of a woman rose in proportion; they being valued at about three hundred dollars less each than the men. The change in the price of slaves caused a lucrative business to spring up, both in the breeding of slaves and the selling of them to the States needing their services. Virginia , Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina became the slave raising sections; Virginia, however, was always considered the banner State. To the traffic in human beings, more than to any other of its evils, is the institution indebted for its overthrow...
"The removal of Dr. Gaines from 'Poplar Farm' to St. Louis , gave me an opportunity of seeing the worst features of the internal slave trade. For many years, Missouri drove a brisk business in the selling of her sons and daughters, the greater number of whom passed through the city of St. Louis. For a long time , James Walker was the principal speculator in this species of property . The early life of this man had been spent as a drayman, first working for others, then for himself, and eventually purchasing men who worked with him. At last, disposing of his horses and drays, he took his faithful men to the Louisiana market and sold them. This was the commencement of a career of cruelty, that, in all probability , had no equal in the annals of the American slave trade.
"A more repulsive-looking person could scarcely be found in any community of bad-looking men than Walker. Tall, lean, and lank, with high cheek-bones , face much pitted with the small-pox, gray eyes, with red eyebrows and sandy whiskers, he indeed stood alone without mate or fellow in looks...."
P.754-755, WILLIAM WELLS BROWN : CLOTEL, AND OTHER WORKS (2014)
https://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/historyculture/african-american-life-in-saint-louis-1804-through-1865.htm