Slavery’s Trail of Tears
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This is the "Trail of Tears" history left out. Imagine a grueling march from the Chesapeake to Louisiana—over a thousand miles—where Black people were chained and forced to walk. It's a chapter of sheer brutality, yet it's barely a footnote in our history books.
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Uncovering the Hidden Chapter: The Slave Trail of Tears
Much of America’s history is marred by the atrocities of slavery, a truth that echoes through time. While many are familiar with the transatlantic slave trade's cruelties, there exists a lesser-known, yet equally devastating chapter: the Slave Trail of Tears. Over several decades, this forced migration reshaped the lives of hundreds of thousands of enslaved people, marking one of the darkest periods of American history.
A Journey Marked by Sorrow
The cotton boom in the Deep South drove an insatiable demand for labor, triggering a massive, forced relocation of enslaved people from the Upper South. Unlike the singular event many imagine, this was a continuous cycle of pain that lasted for years, involving countless men, women, and children being uprooted from their homes. They were not only marched over a thousand miles to unfamiliar lands but also shipped downriver in conditions reminiscent of the transatlantic crossings, only to be sold again.
Slave traders, including but not limited to infamous figures like Isaac Franklin and John Armfield, capitalized on this demand. Their business operations were vast and ruthlessly efficient, representing just a fraction of the firms and individuals engaged in this trade of human lives. These operations were part of a broader, systemic network that facilitated the constant buying, selling, and relocation of enslaved people across the country, perpetuating a cycle of suffering and separation.
Franklin and Armfield's Operation: A Lucrative Empire of Despair
Operating from their headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, Franklin and Armfield's business was a well-oiled machine of misery. They utilized a network of agents to purchase enslaved people at low prices, who were then marched or shipped to their holding facilities, the most infamous being the "Yellow House" in Alexandria. From there, they orchestrated the transportation of human cargoes via the infamous "coffle" marches or by sea, where the enslaved were packed into ships under deplorable conditions akin to the earlier transatlantic slave trade.
Their operation didn't just rely on the physical movement of enslaved people; it was built on a foundation of psychological manipulation and violence. Families were torn apart, and the enslaved lived under constant fear of punishment, sale, or death. The efficiency of their operation and their ability to suppress rebellion or escape attempts speaks to the chilling effectiveness of their systematized cruelty.
The Trail's Harsh Realities
The journey itself was a harrowing experience for the enslaved, marked by unimaginable cruelty. Shackled in chains, they marched for months, wrested from everything familiar, enduring harsh weather, disease, and violence. The path from the Upper South to the Deep South became a corridor of agony, its routes marked by the graves of those who could not survive the journey.
Echoes of Pain and Resilience
The Slave Trail of Tears stands as a testament to the systemic exploitation and dehumanization of Black people, a reflection of the lengths to which economic interests overrode basic humanity. Yet, it also underscores the resilience and strength of those who endured, whose spirits could not be broken despite the attempts of slave traders and the society that enabled them.
As we delve into this chapter of Black history, it's crucial to remember that the pain and trauma inflicted during this mass exodus are not just historical footnotes but integral parts of the American narrative. They deserve to be acknowledged and remembered alongside the transatlantic slave trade and other significant migration stories.
Why This Chapter Matters Today
Understanding the Slave Trail of Tears is essential not only for comprehending the full scope of slavery's impact but also for recognizing the enduring legacy of these atrocities in today's society. It's a call to remember, to learn, and to ensure that such injustices are never repeated, reinforcing the need for continuous education and dialogue around the painful parts of our history.
As we reflect on this grim chapter, let's honor the memory of those who suffered by committing to a future where history's lessons guide us toward justice and understanding. The Slave Trail of Tears, a story of forced migration and resilience in the face of unspeakable cruelty, is a critical piece of America's past that we must all strive to remember and learn from.
RESEARCH & RESOURCES:
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In 1834, slave trader Isaac Franklin, co -founder of Franklin and Armfield, the largest slave trading firm in the United States, sat atop his horse, armed with a whip and a pistol. He was trafficking in human beings, 200 of them to be exact. Now picture this black men and boys lined in twos with their wrists handcuffed together in an iron chain.
running down the length of 100 pairs of people with no control over where they'd end up. This human caravan, otherwise known as a carpool, was corralled like animals. And behind them, 100 more souls, women and girls, many had babies clinging to them. And behind them were wagons carrying food, clothes, and provisions, and toddlers, and babies too small to walk to 10 hours per day.
All the enslaved were surrounded by armed white men, escaping virtually impossible. What I'm describing to you is the most forgotten migration in American history. The slave trail of tears. People marched 1 ,000 miles and chain coffers of 20 to 100 from the Chesapeake to Louisiana.
or they were herded onto ships that sailed from near Washington, D .C. around Florida and up the Mississippi River to be sold in New Orleans. Historian Edward Ball asserts that, quote, the slave trail of tears is the great missing migration, a thousand mile long river of people, all of them black, reaching from Virginia to Louisiana. During the 50th century,
years before the Civil War, about a million enslaved people moved from the Upper South Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky to the Deep South, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. They were made to go, deported, you could say. Having been sold, this forced resettlement was 20 times larger than Andrew Jackson's Indian removal campaigns of the 1830s, which gave rise to the original Trail of Tears as it drove tribes of Native Americans out of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Jermaine Fowler (02:13.038)
It was bigger than the immigration of Jews into the United States during the 19th century when some 500 ,000 arrived from Russia and Eastern Europe. It was bigger than the wagon train migration to the West. Beloved of American lore, this movement lasted longer and grabbed up more people than any other migration in North America before 1900." Now you all know I'm very interested in highlighting forgotten history and I'm constantly shocked about the things I uncover, but this one was a huge moment of
How does no one know about this? Here you have two of the most prolific dealers in human flesh in American history, Isaac Franklin and John Armfield, guys who might be compared to Hitler and their ruthlessness right here in American history. How are they not household names? Now, I wanna tell you a quick story of just how terrible these people were. They called themselves one -eyed men as euphemisms for their...
genitals because they would write about their endless rapes and business correspondence. They called the women they targeted fancy women signifying age beauty and desirability for sexual abuse. To my certain knowledge wrote Isaac Franklin's nephew James she has been used and that smartly by a one -eyed man about my size age excuse my foolishness.
And this was in a business letter referring to Caroline Brown, an enslaved woman who suffered under this cruelty for about five months.
Can you imagine? And this was just one example bragging about the rape of women was part of the business culture. John Armfield has at least one direct black descendant, Rodney Williams, who shared his story in the book, Slavery's Descendants, Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation. It's a little known but fascinating book about the modern day descendants of enslavers and the enslaved to reckon with the pain of a very personal history.
Jermaine Fowler (04:12.974)
Now you might be wondering how exactly these operations worked. Here's how according to historians says quote, relying on a network of headhunters spread across Virginia, Maryland and the district. Armfield would round up enslaved people, holding them in an open air pen behind the house in Alexandria or sometimes in its crowded filthy basement until he'd amassed a sufficient number, usually between 100 and 200.
Then he'd send the group on an arduous 1000 mile march to slave markets in Natchez or New Orleans, or he'd stuff them into one of the company's three massive ships to make the same journey by water. At the peak of their business, the two men were moving roughly 1000 people per year." Unquote.
The slave trail of tears wasn't just a brutal forced migration, it was also a massive business operation. Slave traders like Franklin and Armfield were making huge profits from buying and selling human beings. What does it say about a society when people can profit from such cruelty and exploitation? And we have to look at this not only from a business sense, I'm always interested in what people go through, the pain and not just pain as a bodily sensation perceived in your physical
body parts like a sharp pain in your lower back or from a cut? No, I'm talking about pain as experience and trauma, an experience that scars your consciousness. And if you've lived a while, surely you've experienced some deep pain. And no, I have. Whether from a loss or an injury, it makes you wonder how you could purposefully put someone else through that. It takes a sort of sadistic type of cruelty. Here's one more quote on the pain inflicted by.
Franklin and Armfield, and remember that these were not the only people doing this. Quote, they placed ads in local newspapers seeking enslaved people almost every single day they remained in business. They developed cruel stratagems to boost their bottom line. For example, they designated less space per person on their ships than the transatlantic slave trade vessels. While enslaved people waited in Franklin and Armfield's holding pen in Alexandria,
Jermaine Fowler (06:28.334)
the two men most likely adopted classic techniques employed by slave traders to enhance enslaved people's sellability. That meant feeding their captives large amounts of corn pone and pork to fatten them up, dyeing gray hair black so they look younger, and if an enslaved person's skin was scarred with whip marks, smearing wax into the wounds so they looked healthier." So I just want to point out that black history, as we typically hear it, includes two huge migration stories.
brutal middle passage of the transatlantic slave trade and the mass exodus of millions of black people from the South to the North, from the 1900s through the 1970s. Those looking to escape racism and cash in on the industrial jobs that were popping up in the North and West. But we must always remember this third migration, the monumental tragedy that was.
slavery's trail of tears. We must remember those souls who arrived at their southern destinations broken and depleted, but who held on to the will to survive the mental and emotional hardship of a journey all but a few.
How many Frankliner arm fields were there? Hundreds, thousands, to make up a million people on the slavery trail of tears.