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Historical Document A slave experience of being sold south 1879 |
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Click here for the text of this historical document. Following the termination of the international slave trade in 1808, an extensive domestic trade opened between the older slave states such as Virginia and Maryland, and the new territories, such as Mississippi and Alabama. Cotton cultivation was pushing west, into the new southern territories, and plantation owners were desperate for slaves to work the crops.
This selection is taken from a book entitled My Life in the South, by Jacob Stroyer. Stroyer had been a slave on a large plantation in South Carolina until he was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1864. He then went on to become a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1879 he published his memories of his life under slavery. In the attached selection, he describes the departure of enslaved people who have been sold South.
Related Entries:
• Letter from Henry Tayloe on the domestic slave trade
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