The Business of Slavery - Forks of the Road
Fueled by the closing of the interstate slave trade into Louisiana from 1831 through 1834, traders began flooding Natchez with their human cargo. With the increasing trader activity, Natchez residents and physicians warned that the slave jails were not only a nuisance but also a threat to health. In the wake of cholera outbreaks, an 1833 ordinance was passed banishing “those persons commonly called negro traders” from the city.
Traders then purchased or leased land here at this intersection or ‘fork’ of Liberty Road and St. Catherine Street and set up compounds for housing, feeding and displaying people for sale. These were not auction houses, but showrooms and inspection rooms where a buyer could purchase a person from those available that day.
[Photo, upper left:] This slave hospital was located on St. Catherine Street near the Forks of the Road.
“In the last two weeks we have Buried … 9 Negroes and 6 or 7 children and we have 7 or 8 Negroes sick …the way we send out dead Negroes at night and keep Dark [secret] is a sin.” --Slave trader Isaac Franklin reporting Natchez cholera deaths in 1832 to Rice Ballard, his partner in Richmond, Virginia.
“The more negroes lost in that country the more will be wanting if they have the means of procuring them.” Rice Ballard in a letter to Isaac Franklin
“The men dressed in navy blue suits, with shiny brass buttons, and “plug” hats, was intended to capture most any boys attention; as they march single and by two’s and three’s in circle. The women wore … calico dresses, and white aprons, and for further ornament & effect, a piece of pink ribbon at the neck with their hair matty, and carefully braided. There were no commands given by anyone, no noise about it no talking in the ranks, no laughter, or merriment, connected with the business, silently, & quietly, they went through those daily drills, headed by a leader who knew his place, as every other one in the ranks knew his or hers. After an hour or so, of this exercise, they would orderly repair to the benches, prepared for them beneath the long gallery at the quarters, and seat themselves in rows. … A planter needing more field hands, and ready to purchase the same, comes to this Market, where this particular species of goods and chattels are usually kept for sale.” -- Felix Eugene Houston Hadsell courtesy of Isabel Hadsell Linch.
[Illustrations, center right:]
[“T. Hart Slaves”] Well dressed for a good presentation and sale, the enslaved often discarded these clothes as soon as possible because of the stigma of being recently from the market.
“The slaves are made to shave and wash in greasy pot liquor, to make them look sleek and nice; the heads must be combed and their best clothes put on; and when called out to be examined they are to stand in a row – the women and men apart – then they are picked out and taken into a room, and examined.”
--Recollection of former slave William Anderson on being prepared for sale in Natchez, 1827.
$50.00 Mississippi Treasury Note [with renderings of enslaved Black cotton workers]. Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
While Forks of the Road became the center for the sale of “imported” slaves, local slaves could still be purchased throughout the city.
Bill of Sale for the “purchase of a negroe boy named Royal,” 1832, Adams County.