A Walking Guide
to Norfolk's Domestic
Slave Trade
Norfolk's role in the Domestic Slave Trade has long been an overlooked portion of Norfolk's past. With the abolishment of the International Slave Trade in 1808, the domestic trade gained prominence. Between 1819 and the 1850s, the slave trade in Norfolk was at its most lucrative, sending and receiving the enslaved from ports such as Alexandria and Richmond, VA, Baltimore, MD, and most significantly, New Orleans, LA. This tour begins and ends with the Elizabeth River, where the enslaved arrived, lived, worked, were sold, and sometimes, escaped along the ports of Norfolk and Portsmouth.
Click on the locations below to begin.
Background and Timeline
During the International Slave Trade, the ships leaving from Norfolk were documented as moving between The United States, The Carribean, and The United Kingdom. With the abolition of the international trade by the U.S. in 1808, the Domestic Slave Trade took shape. Between 1808 and 1819, however, there are few indications that the domestic slave trade in Norfolk went beyond local sales including selling slaves who had been willed to a relative, those legally bound to estates, or selling slaves between individuals within local markets. By 1819, evidence of a wider market between states along the East Coast and Gulf Coast became more prevalent in records of slave manifests, bills of lading, advertisements for slave sales, and reports about incoming and outgoing vessels. This rise in communication between Norfolk residents and traders in distant ports was evidence that the Norfolk slave trade was becoming less localized and was participating in the domestic slave trade more fully.
The explanation for the rise in Norfolk records in 1819 and the date's significance is under question, however. It was possible that Norfolk was not taking part in the domestic slave trade in any significant capacity until 1819, as traders in Norfolk needed time to switch from their international focus to make connections with more American traders. More likely, the sudden growth in records was a result of the Steerage Act of 1819, which required passenger lists from all vessels carrying over forty individuals for immigration regulation and to assure standard conditions for travel. In this way, there could be more records of Norfolk's trade simply because traders were compelled to document the passage of slaves aboard ships with their local Customs House. Despite a lack of records about the Norfolk slave trade between 1808 and 1819, it is clear that the domestic slave trade in Norfolk was established and lucrative by 1819.
1. The Wharves and Its Ships
Now a place for food, drinks, family, and festivals, the areas known as Waterside and Town Point Park near Nauticus were once bustling, private wharves functioning as areas of commerce for Norfolk and the surrounding cities. Vessels at the wharves would carry cargo shipments to and from the ports, including goods such as food, textiles, oil, metals, and people.
The wharves that witnessed vast amounts of human cargo were Newton's Wharf, Campbell's Wharf (later Ferry Landing), and Marsden's Wharf (later Roanoke Docks). These sites can be seen at the water line near what is labeled "Market Square" in the above 1851 map of Norfolk. In today's Norfolk, these docks are located at the water line between Atlantic St. and Commercial Pl. in an area that is now the Sheraton Hotel, Waterside, and the Elizabeth River Trail.
According to property deeds and newspaper advertisements, known traders such as William H. Hall and Charles Hatcher had their offices near Newton's Wharf, where they were close enough to the ships and the market to oversee their operations. Another trader named George Apperson had advertisements for his vessels the Parthian and the Johnathan A. Lancaster (top left image), which were shipping freight and steerage passage from Norfolk to New Orleans, LA. The advertisements by ship brokers or owners like the ones seen to the left, along with ship manifests, or "ship news" sections of newspapers have given evidence that Norfolk was a bustling port where the enslaved were often shipped as "cargo" alongside livestock and freight materials such as cotton, tobacco, oils, or metals.
The same verbiage for the above ships can be seen in the advertisement for the Creole. Both Apperson and Hall transported the enslaved aboard the Creole when it stopped in Norfolk on its October 28th, 1841 voyage from Richmond to New Orleans. According to the ship's manifest, Apperson boarded between twenty two and twenty four people, ranging in age between 25 years old and 9 years old. Hall transported eight people on behalf of Hatcher aboard the Creole, ranging from 37 years old to 8 years old. In total, there were 84 enslaved from Norfolk aboard the brig when it left the Norfolk port, with the total number of enslaved aboard the vessel reaching 135 when put together with those who had already been on board from Richmond. Many of the group from Norfolk were women and girls between the ages of 13 and 20. Both Apperson and Hall intended for these individuals to be sold on their behalf in the markets of New Orleans where they would be purchased and forced to labor as field hands, stable hands, skilled laborers such as carpenters, blacksmiths, or seamstresses, house servants, or in some cases, brothel workers.
This October voyage by the Creole was particularly noteworthy, because there was evidence of an uprising among the 135 enslaved aboard the ship about a week after leaving Norfolk. According to a report about the Creole's crew's Protest, a formal account of events on a ship by its crew or other witnesses, an uprising occurred on November 7th, 1841.* In the protest, the crew identified four men who were the primary leaders of this revolt. One man, called Madison Washington, "a very large and strong slave" according to the crew, began the uprising when he held one of the guards from behind and yelled "rush, boys, rush aft and we have them!" Ill equipped for a fight with all guards, Madison and three other men called Ben Blacksmith, D. Ruffin, and Elijah Morris wrestled knives and guns away from their captors, and eventually assumed control of the whole ship. In addition to the main four mutineers, 15 other enslaved helped sail and keep control of the ship. At first, Washington demanded to sail the ship to Liberia, but as that was impossible with the supplies at hand, he settled for the British Islands, eventually sailing to Nassau. Once in Nassau, its authorities took control of the vessel, imprisoned the 19 mutineers and allowed for the rest of the enslaved to leave the ship freely. According to the newspaper, the Nassau authorities "caused the loss of the slaves to their owners," implying that a majority of the enslaved aboard the Creole gained their freedom from the event.
This instance of the Creole demonstrated how interconnected and expansive the networks for the domestic slave trade were. However, it also showed how there were limits to their authority that the enslaved knew about and tried to exploit.
It is important to note that traders like Apperson and Hall were not working alone in the sale of people. They were connected through relationships with one another, newspaper advertisements, ship captains and crew, ship brokers such as John Dickson (middle left image), port customs agents, or representative agents in far away cities such as New Orleans who could broker the actual sale of the enslaved sent by men like Hall and Apperson. Additionally, the shops that supplied them with materials such as clothing to supplement their businesses, the jails and "repositories" where they kept the enslaved controlled while waiting for ship passage, and even hospitals where the enslaved were treated for illnesses not for the sake of their own health, but for the pocketbook of the traders and their employees, were all vital for the functioning of the slave trade in Norfolk.
In the following stops you will learn more about the infrastructure in place to keep control over the enslaved and gain profit from their exploitation. However, it will also become apparent that despite the efforts of the network of traders, buyers, brokers, and supporting businesses, the enslaved were also working to thwart the oppressive system. The revolt aboard the Creole represented an example of this effort.
*In the above Protest, the date of November 7th, 1842 is an error. Since the newspaper, Niles' National Register has this issue dated as January 22, 1842, reporting on events in November of the same year would be impossible. Instead, the dates associated with the voyage of the Creole between October and December of 1841 match the descriptions given in the Protest.
Above is the last page of the manifest of the Creole. This particular manifest was several pages long, with the names of the traders written vertically to the right of the list of enslaved individuals whose names, sex, age, height, and color were recorded. The physical descriptions of the enslaved played a significant role in the monetary value placed upon them and therefore was relevant for the traders in order to protect their "merchandise" in case of an insurance claim. In the case of the Creole, an insurance claim from Apperson showed that he filed a claim for $20,470 due to the uprising on the Creole.
2. The Traders
Between the 1820s and 1850s, the most economically successful traders in Norfolk and Portsmouth were those who organized networks among themselves where fellow traders could use the same facilities, trade with each other, and communicate with each other's connections or "agents" at other ports to sell to more people more quickly.
The traders who worked in conjunction with other traders included the men mentioned under Location 1: "The Wharves and Its Ships" named George Apperson, William Hall, and Charles Hatcher. Others included traders by the names Johnathan J. Whitehurst, Johnathan W. Starke, and Bartholomew Accinelly. While many of these men worked together at various points in time, it is important to note that some operated or were most successful at various points between the 1820s and 1860s.
Bartholomew Accinelly was one of the earliest domestic traders to operate along the Elizabeth River. He owned and operated a shipyard at the foot of High Street in Portsmouth between the 1820s and 1830s. His profession was recorded as "shipbuilder," but advertisements for buying the enslaveds, as well as notary records, fugitive slave advertisements, and ship manifests between 1821 and 1826 indicated that Accinelly sent at least twenty eight ships, including the schooners the James Monroe and the Ceres (see images), to New Orleans, LA with the enslaved aboard. He was one of the most prominent traders in the Portsmouth-Norfolk area during the early years of the trade, working closely with fellow Portsmouth/Norfolk trader, Bernard Raux, and Stephen Peillon, his grandson-in-law, to operate his business. Although Accinelly was one of the earlier traders, he exhibited the mutual dependence of traders that became more evident in the following decades.
The trader, George Apperson, operated in Norfolk between 1841 and 1850, after which he moved his business to Richmond, VA. In his time in Norfolk, he had known business dealings with both Charles Hatcher and William Hall. However, they were only a portion of his network. Apperson was especially open to working or helping other traders, as evident in the location of his office on 13 Union Street, which he rented during his time operating in Norfolk. This same office space was then rented by both John Starke and J.J. Whitehurst after Apperson's departure. The office at 13 Union Street, across from the Union Hotel (and now in proximity of the Icon Building on Main St., the location of this stop), was advertised by Apperson in December of 1849 as his office space, and then by Starke and Whitehurst in the 1850s and 1860s as their office space (see top images). Although it is unlikely Apperson shared the Union Street location with either trader, he did share an office with John Starke in Richmond during the 1850s. Since traders such as Apperson and Starke or Whitehurst and Starke were recorded as sharing office space, it is probable that the traders were communicating with one another, sharing space, ships, jails, relationships, and resources to grow their businesses separately, while also creating a network of traders upon which they also relied.
Records of Norfolk trader's property deeds and advertisements for office space not only indicated communication between traders. Deeds also suggested that traders owned or rented several properties to operate their business, with most being within a block or two from Widewater Street--what is now called Waterside Drive. Apperson's list of properties support this assumption, as he rented the office on Union St., an office over William H. Nash’s Auction Store at Newton’s Wharf, a space at the market building in Market Square, a home on Calvert's Lane, and a jail on Reid's Lane between 1844 and 1849 (see above 1851 Map for street names and proximity). William Hall also supported this trend, as he rented office space near Newton's Wharf in Market Square, a home on Cumberland Street (near St. Paul's Episcopal Church and MacArthur Mall), and most significantly, he owned a prominent jail for the enslaved on Calvert's Lane, near Apperson's jail.
Altogether, there is significant evidence to indicate that the most economically successful traders created a network of fellow traders who owned businesses used in the trade, had close contact with other traders and auctioneers to secure office and jail space for their captives, and became close enough acquaintances to share their space, as well as trust one another to ship their "merchandise" on their behalf. This trust can be seen with Hall transporting Hatcher's "merchandise" in the voyage of the Creole.
"A Bird's Eye View of Harbor" in "Norfolk as a Business Center" 1882: Although this image was drawn in the 1880s, it gives a sense of what the wharves and office spaces would have looked like before the area became Waterside.
3. The Auctions, The Buyers, The Enslaved
After the enslaved arrived at the wharves in downtown Norfolk, traders would hold them in "slave pens," which were akin to jail houses and often referred to as such. Some of these jails were located in the back of the traders' offices in the case of Apperson, Starke, and Whitehurst. Other jails were separate buildings, like those owned by Apperson on Reid's Lane, Hall's jail on Calvert's Lane, and an infamous jail owned by Elias Guy and John Caphart that will be discussed at length in future tour stops. In these locations, the enslaved would await auctions, wait to board ships, or wait for an opportunity to escape.
According to historians of nineteenth century U.S. slave markets, the enslaved were usually sold in private auctions, in jails also called "pens" operated by the traders, rather than large, open-air public auctions that have been perpetuated by Hollywood (Johnson, 7). This trend of private auctions is supported by the several locations for slave auctions in Norfolk, VA. However, more public auctions likely did occur in the area known as Market Square, located between present-day Atlantic Street and Commercial Place.
The location for this stop is along the corner of present-day Atlantic Street as a central location between several auction sites active between 1819 and 1862. In addition to the trader's jails, there were private auctioneers who would perform the auctions on behalf of the traders. There were several auctioneers with premises in downtown Norfolk, but two of the most prolific were H & W Pannell Auctioneers and Nash & Co. Auctioneers (see images). H & W Pannell Auctioneers was managed by William Pannell, with locations on East Freemason Street and on Roanoke Square, near the Market House, seen in the 1851 Map of Norfolk from Location #1. Nash & Co. Auctioneers, owned by William H. Nash and Miles Nash, who secured an office on Newton's Wharf. Between these two auctioneers and the locations of the traders' slave pens, a large portion of Norfolk's slave auctions took place in proximity to Market Square and the wharves along Widewater Street (now Waterside Drive).
Based on the "wanted" advertisements in Norfolk's local newspapers the American Beacon and the Norfolk Herald, many of the buyers were already involved in the slave trade in some capacity. For instance, the known traders Bernard Raux, Elias Guy, Joseph Granier, and George Apperson would advertise their desire to purchase slaves with certain skills, physical attributes, or particular ages (see images). This practice was an essential part of the trader's business, as they needed a steady influx of slaves to send aboard ships or sell locally in Hampton Roads. This constant selling, purchasing, and advertising within Norfolk is another example of how inter-connected the traders were with Norfolk's local economy of auctioneers, ship brokers, jailers, or property managers.
It is difficult to discuss and to understand the trader's reasoning in selling fellow humans. The notaries, who finalized and documented the sale of the enslaved between the traders/agents and the buyers, often say little about the enslaved other than a first name, their coloring, their sex, and their age. Sometimes occupation is mentioned, or physical malady, injury, or identifying feature. For instance, an eighteen year old boy named David lost an eye by an unexplained event and was then sold at a discounted price by some of the more infamous Maryland and Georgia-based traders known as the Woolfolks. Although the notaries provide the physical descriptions of the enslaved and the reasoning for setting a certain price on their "merchandise," the record of their identities as humans were largely stripped away by the legal jargon of the notary and the commercial interests of the traders.
According to notary records from New Orleans indicating individual slaves sold by Norfolk traders and infamous traders such as Isaac Franklin and the Woolfolk brothers, prices of the enslaved depended upon their usefulness as skilled workers, their strength, their sex, their age, and their skin color, which was subdivided into categories of "black," "mulatto," "griffe," "quadroon," and sometimes "yellow." The importance of these aspects can be seen in the advertisement by Raux asking for skilled laborers such as mechanics, blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, a seamstress, and a washer and ironers (see image), as skilled laborers were often valued by traders and auctioneers anywhere between $1000 and $2000 each depending on the decade and the health, physicality, and skills of the men and women in question.
The sex and color of the enslaved was especially important to traders' sense of profit. Young men, between the age of 15 and 25 were regularly sold for more than double the price of young women of the same age according to the New Orleans notary records from the 1820s to late 1830s. Young women were also included as skilled workers, often for sewing, washing, and ironing, as seen in Raux's advertisement, but were often valued at nearly half the amount of skilled men. Many of the women sold were teenagers between thirteen and nineteen years old, but the notary records from New Orleans also showed how selling enslaved women with their young children, often children under ten years old, was also commonly practiced. The color of women could have been more important for pricing women than men, as young women who were "more white," often referring to those of mixed race, either griffe (half white) or quadroon (one quarter black), were usually valued between $25 to $50 more than black women. Although a trend in the New Orleans notaries, it is unclear whether this pricing practice was widespread at different ports or by individual traders.
Despite the trader's emphasis on profits and the impersonal and legal entries of the notaries, there is evidence that traders were forced to consider their captives factors in their success. Walter Johnson, author of Soul By Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market, argued that slaveholders had to consider their captives' actions as important factors in whether a sale or purchase would be successful. The most strategic time when slaves were able to act for their own wants and needs was when they were being sold. The enslaved took advantage of this transition period in the best ways they could. Some ran away or even used the idea of running away as a way to negotiate the terms of sale (Johnson 32). Others tried to gain freedom by purchasing themselves or suing for their freedom with Freedom Suits, which will be explained more fully in later parts of the tour.
The majority of slaves, however, were not able to risk running away or legal action for their own self-preservation or for their family's. Instead, many negotiated their terms of sale in their interactions with each other and buyers at auctions. They took advantage of the vague descriptions of the traders by presenting themselves as strong, weak, skilled, unskilled, etc. based on their own liking of the buyer and the tasks they would force upon them. In most ways, the auction process for the enslaved was a frightening experience where there was little control over one's own fate, but it is likely that those being auctioned weighed the limited decisions they could and tried to manipulate their circumstances to fight for their own self-interest.
Below is an excerpt from the account of Peter Randolph, who wrote about his life as an enslaved person and what he experienced and observed during an auction in Virginia. This excerpt came from his 1855 account, Sketches of Slave Life: or, Illustrations of the “Peculiar Institution." (Please note that there is racial language and disturbing accounts that may offend the reader.):
"The auctioneer is crying the slave to the highest bidder. 'Gentlemen, here is a very fine boy for sale. He is worth twelve hundred dollars. His name is Emanuel. He belongs to Dea. William Harrison, who wants to sell him because his overseer don’t like him. How much, gentlemen—how much for this boy? He’s a fine, hearty nigger. Bid up, bid up, gentlemen; he must be sold.' Some come up to look at him, pull open his mouth to examine his teeth, and see if they are good. Poor fellow! he is handled and examined like any piece of merchandize ; but he must bear it. Neither tongue nor hand, nor any other member, is his own,—why should he attempt to use another’s property?
Again the bidding goes on: 'I will give one thousand dollars for that boy.' The auctioneer says, 'Sir, he is worth twelve hundred at the lowest. Bid up, gentlemen, bid up; going, going—are you all done?—once, twice, three times—all done?—GONE!'
See the slaveholder, who just bought the image of God, come to his victim, and take possession of him. Poor Emanuel must go away from his wife, never to see her again. All the ties of love are severed; the declaration of the Almighty, which said, 'What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,' is unheeded, and he must leave all to follow his Christian master,—a member of the Episcopal Church,—a partaker, from time to time, of the Lord’s sacrament! Such men mock religion and insult God. O that God would rend the heavens, and appear unto these heartless men!"
4. The Press and The Custom House
This location is about the role newspapers and the city of Norfolk's pivotal role in not only making the slave trade possible in Norfolk, but creating a booming, successful enterprise with networks around the city. The image above is a sketch of the Owen B. Pickett U.S. Custom House, completed in 1858. The structure and location that stand today were chosen to replace the original U.S. Custom House completed in 1819. The original location of the Custom House can be seen in the below map of 1851 Norfolk as a black square about a block away from Newton's Wharf. The location of the 1858 Custom House is located on the corner where "P.O." an abbreviation for Post Office is indicated with an orange square at the top of Commerce Street and Main Street.
While the newspaper companies were privately owned and participated in the trade for their own economic benefit, the U.S. Custom House represented the federal endorsement of the domestic slave trade.
By the nineteenth century, federal agencies like the Internal Tax Revenue Service (IRS) had not been created, leaving the task of collecting taxes from individuals, documenting the trade of property and ensuring trade laws were followed within the ports and cities to the U.S. Custom Houses. The importance of taxation and documentation of trade was fundamental to making the slave trade a legitimate business with recourse for delinquent purchases by buyers who never fully paid a trader for the slave or traders who had misrepresented the slave to a buyer. Within this legal context, the slave trade seems all the more sinister, as traders, buyers, and government workers not only treated the enslaved as trade goods, but actively recorded moments of their lives as nothing more than an exchange between a trader and a buyer.
Notary records from Custom Houses provide insight into the relationship between the trader, the buyers, and the enslaved. For instance, a notary record from November 11th, 1837 indicated that there was a notarized sale of an eighteen year old girl named Mary Ann for $900 to Thomas Walsh, a resident of New Orleans. On November 28th of the same year, Walsh called for an abrogation, or a void of his previous purchase since Mary Ann had run away from him. The document reported that Mary Ann had not been returned to Walsh yet, but the trader agreed that if she were caught and brought back to him, Walsh would get a refund of $900.
The record of Mary Ann's escape (see hand-written image), exemplified the cold language of buyers like Walsh and the legal system in place to ensure that a fair trade took place between the traders and buyers. The enslaved, although written about by Customs and traders as nothing more than a commodity, compelled the system to acknowledge that they were not simply a trade good. Mary Ann demonstrated one of the clearest ways the enslaved resisted and actively worked against the oppressive system that spanned across private businesses (like newspapers, which printed runaway slave ads) to the public domain of trade laws and property holdings dealt with by the Custom House.
The above images of slave advertisements from "The Editors" of the American Beacon and the "Terms" for advertising in the Norfolk Herald help understand nineteenth century newspapers as more than the content they created. Instead, the editor's active involvement in selling slaves and the rates of taking out an advertisement implicates the newspapers as another business entity looking to profit from the sale of slaves in Norfolk.
Without the newspaper advertisements for the auctions, the trader's office locations, the buyers looking to purchase the enslaved, the fugitive slave ads, the shops advertising clothing for the enslaved, shoes, and materials, or the infirmaries for the enslaved, controlling and selling thousands of people would have been almost impossible. It is important when thinking about the Norfolk slave trade, and the trade more generally, that the traders were only one portion of a society that accepted the trade as a part of life.
5. The Old City Hall and Courthouse
Court cases at the former Norfolk City Hall included cases called Freedom Suits, where the enslaved sued for their emancipation. There were certain instances where the enslaved had the ability to initiate these lawsuits. The first, was if they claimed to be set free by the will and testament of a deceased owner or a deed of emancipation while the owner was alive. Some also took up charges if the slave owners did not have the proper documentation regarding their ownership and their importation. These were called Importation Certificates, and were required in Virginia after 1778 when the governor made it illegal for Virginia slave traders and slave owners to import slaves from Africa, or bring slaves into the state with the intent to sell them. Others applied based on the claim that they were descendants of a free woman, which called back to a 1662 law from the Virginia General Assembly, which stated “all children born in this country, shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother."
The Freedom Suits required the enslaved to prove their lineage in some instances or have documentation (a deed of emancipation or a former owner's will) that could prove to the court they had one of the three requirements for suing for freedom. In other cases, the onus fell to the slave owners to prove they had Importation Certificates. If they could not provide that, the enslaved individual would be freed. The proceeds of a Freedom Suit would generally include petitioning the court for freedom, providing evidence to the court, and supplying witnesses. Because of the nature of a lawsuit and the involvement with the enslaver, the cases would have include a petitioner, the enslaved individual suing for freedom; it would include a defendent, which was the individual the petition was made against, in most cases the enslavers; and a deponent, a person who would provide testimony during the proceedings.
In Virginia's records of Freedom Suits, an individual named Peter, with no known last name, appeared at the court house of Norfolk County in 1819 to sue for his freedom. Mentioned in the suit were also three women or girls of unknown age named Sarah, Mary, and Cloe. Peter sued on the premise that he had already been emancipated, either by deed or will from the Fisher family, including Lydia and Johnathan Fisher and Joel King. The defendant in this case was John Shipp, which implied that Peter had been purchased by Shipp after his emancipation. Peter's witness for the case was a Mr. Broughton of Norfolk County, but no first name was given. Despite Peter's petition, it was unclear whether he or Sarah, Mary, and Cloe ever gained freedom from this lawsuit.
Another Freedom Suit from Hampton Roads was by a woman named Margaret from Elizabeth County, VA, which is now Hampton. Margaret, along with eleven other enslaved individuals sued the son of their former enslaver, named William Wilson Jr., in 1827 on account of their unrecognized emancipation after their their enslaver's will was read. In this case, five deponents, or witnesses, were called into the suit. It was unclear whether these five people, with last names Russell, Howard, Tufts, Clarke, and Shields, were witnesses for the plaintiff or the defense. Likewise, the outcome of this Freedom Suit was unknown.
Compared to the existing records of Freedom Suits in Northern Virginia, in Fredericksburg or Arlington, the records of Freedom Suits in Norfolk and its surrounding cities were either lost or moved without any record of where they might be located. Very few Freedom Suits can be found for Norfolk County, but that does not mean they did not happen. The review of Norfolk's documents regarding the domestic slave trade and the lawsuits by the enslaved has hardly begun.
Despite the legal options some of the enslaved pursued, the City Hall and Courthouse remained formidable places for the enslaved. Norfolk's City Hall in particular was a common public auction site and was also near the former Norfolk Police Station, an infirmary for the enslaved, and a private jail for the enslaved. This nearby jail was operated by a trader and police officer, John Caphart, who was well-documented for his brutality to escaped enslaved individuals. Caphart will be discussed in detail in the next three locations of the tour.
Norfolk's Old City Hall was originally completed in 1850 to replace the town hall that had acted as Norfolk's city hall and courthouse since the colonial period. Now functioning as a part of the MacArthur Memorial Museum, the Old City Hall used to handle property deeds, licensing, and most significantly, court cases, particularly cases often called Freedman Suits.
Above: Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet from The Library of Congress. Scott's case in 1857 Missouri was one of the most well known Freedom Suits in the U.S. The decision not to grant Scott his emancipation, more widely known as the "Dred Scott Decision" was one of the sparks that ultimately led to the U.S. Civil War.
Below: Political cartoon depicting Dred Scott playing the violin for the 1860 presidential nominees who are each dancing with their perceived constituents. This cartoon demonstrated the nationwide effect of the Dred Scott Decision on American politics. This case was an example of how local Freedom Suits could have national repercussions. The enslaved had been working against their enslaved status for a long time before national politics began supporting abolition.
6. The Police Station and City Prison
Above: An 1851 City Map showing the Old City Hall with buildings located behind it. According to Norfolk's City Directory from 1851, the City Prison was located "south of Cove [Street], near Avon [Street], and in the rear of City Hall." For more modern reference, Cove Street is now City Hall Avenue and Church Street is currently St. Paul's Blvd.
Where Freedom Suits represented a hope of emancipation for some of the enslaved, the courthouse and its surrounding public buildings such as the police station and the city jail also represented the federal, state, and city laws in place to support their enslavement and the domestic slave trade as a whole. In previous stops, the focus has been primarily on how traders and private businesses supported the continuation of the slave trade. The federal government, as evident by the Custom House, also played a supporting role. Now, the City of Norfolk, and its employees will take center stage in the discussion of the slave trade.
Two slave traders named Elias Guy and John Caphart were active in Norfolk's trade between the 1830s and 1840s. In addition to trading slaves, Caphart was a constable in the city's police force and Guy was a constable as well as a captain of the City Watch in the 1840s and 1850s. Together, they operated their own private jail and made money catching fugitive slaves at the same time they worked in the police force. Caphart was known by his contemporaries to be especially brutal to enslaved and freedpeople alike. His exploits in the fugitive-slave business, as well as his personal account of his experience as a Norfolk police officer, exhibited the harsh reality of the slave trade, its supporting businesses, and the city's support of the system at large.
In 1854, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote a companion to her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, called The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the Original Facts and Documents Upon Which the Story is Founded: Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work. The purpose of this book was to provide readers with a non-fiction accompaniment to her fictional work, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and to prove with contemporary accounts that slavery was evil. In the first chapter of her work, she published letters describing Caphart, as well as a published court examination of Caphart as one of the inspirations for her slave-trader character, Mr. Haley.
Stowe's first mention of Caphart was in a letter published in the newspaper National Era. In the letter, the author wrote candidly about working with Caphart, along with a network of men in different states to find runaway slaves and return them to their enslavers in the south. It was clear from this letter that Caphart was not simply operating a local fugitive slave business, but one with connections to the states Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.
The next instance Stowe described Caphart was through a lawyer's transcript of Caphart's examination in "The Rescue Trial" in Boston between 1851 and 1852. The lawyer wrote that he could never forget Caphart, because he had never met a man so "cold-blooded" in his testimony. A photograph of the court testimony is attached as an image for a full recollection of his examination (see corresponding image).
During his questioning, Caphart spoke about his duties as a Norfolk police officer. As an officer, one of his duties was to patrol the city at night and arrest any black person, regardless of their status of enslaved or free. According to Caphart, before being released from jail in the morning, they received a punishment "[n]ot exceeding thirty-nine lashes" given by the police officers. This punishment was given out to men, women, and children of all sexes, and the policemen who captured and whipped the captives would receive "fifty cents a head." For context, $0.50 in 1851 equated to $19.54 in 2023.
In addition to his official police duties, Caphart described his services in his private slave fugitive business. Besides hunting and capturing fugitive slaves, Caphart loaned his "private flogging" services to enslavers to enforce punishments on slaves of all ages and sexes for a fee. He noted that he had been operating this business privately since 1836 and when asked how many people he had flogged, he answered that he reckoned he had whipped as many slaves as there were black people in Massachusetts.
The significance of Caphart's testimony was not only in recounting the brutality of the slave trade. His descriptions of the nightly police duties demonstrated further how the slave trade, and the broader mistreatment and dehumanization of blacks, was not only perpetuated by the slave traders, it was enforced by city officials. Despite the cruelty shown toward enslaved and freedpeople from private white citizens, city officials, and federal employees, as well as the hopelessness of their status in Norfolk, the enslaved continued to resist their own enslavement through legal actions such as the Freedom Suits. Another common way to resist was through escaping. Discussed in some detail at the auction-site location, runaway slaves will be discussed again at location #8.
Above: A Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1910 showing in more detail the location of the City Hall, the City Prison, and Police Station. Although this map is more modern, the locations of these buildings still match the descriptions of the 1851 location above.
Above: An advertisement for Elias Guy, slave trader and partner, John Caphart's jail location. Both men were police constables according to the Norfolk City Directory of 1851.
Above: Caphart's examination transcript found on pages five and six of Stowe's work, The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. In this transcript he discussses his duties as a Norfolk police officer, and his private business as a fugitive slave hunter. Please note that this is a historical document and does use language offensive to modern readers.
7. The Infirmaries
Near the Old City Hall, city prison, and police station, on Talbot Street (no longer a road, but the space between the MacArthur Memorial Museum and Court St.) an "infirmary for slaves" was opened by a group of doctors named Dr. William J. Moore, Dr. Geo L. Upshur, and Dr. Robert W. Rose to expand their successful practice in slave medicine. Their old location was on Calvert's Lane, near the private jails owned by the traders Caphart and Guy, Apperson, and Hall that will be discussed in the next two sites.
This group of doctors from Talbot Street, were not the only medical practices in Norfolk that gave medical treatment to the enslaved, but they did advertise their businesses the most. Other doctors such as Thomas Nash, Robert Archer, or Thomas F. Andrews also had confirmed practices treating either the enslaved or freedpeople. The distinction between enslaved and freedpeople is necessary when discussing these practices, not only because the status of free versus enslaved is an important distinction, but because one type of practice was accommodating patrons who were freedpeople and the others were accommodating the needs of the enslavers and traders as patrons.
The enslaved were seen as products of enslavers to the doctors of "infirmaries for slaves," in the same way they were attributed to traders and enslavers in the newspapers, the shipping records, customs records, and in the court system. One would expect that infirmaries for the enslaved were different from the private and city businesses that tried to profit from the enslaved's status. The nature of medical care helped this assumption, since providing care to someone should indicate some shared sense of humanity between the caregiver and the sick. Unfortunately, the advertisements for the infirmaries tell a different story.
In the two advertisements for Moore, Upshur, and Rose's "Infirmary for Slaves," they were directly marketing to enslavers and traders. Instead of ensuring care for the sick or injured with sympathy for families, they focused on the practical benefits of choosing their business. This practical approach was to ensure the privacy and cleanliness of the infirmary, as well as the benefits of leaving "servants" in their care so the patron could "save trouble and expense." Trouble in this context could be interpreted in various ways, which was surely no accident. To traders or other enslavers, trouble could have meant anything from spending valuable time and effort caring for a "servant." It could also imply that the one sick enslaved individual might spread disease to others and cause more "trouble."
This "trouble" could also be monetary for traders, as sick individuals did not sell for as much money as healthy people. The sale of twenty five slaved from Charles Hatcher, one of the Norfolk traders, to Celestin Chiapella, an enslaver from St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana can demonstrate the connection between health and profit within slave sales. Among the twenty five enslaved, four had medical issues that had to be disclosed to the buyer. Two men named Moses and Bill had venereal diseases, a man named Bill Barten had "an ulcerated leg," and Sam Williams had an unknown affliction to his arms. In this particular instance, the individual prices of the sick or injured slaves were recorded as a lump sum together with the twenty one healthy individuals for $10,142. This total price equated to each enslaved individual being sold for approximately $406. This sale took place in 1829, when an average price of a male slave was $600 or higher, indicating that the price of this group of people had been decreased.
In another sale from the same time period, there was more definite evidence that the monetary value of the enslaved decreased based on injury. James Barnes Diggs, a trader who had ties to Norfolk, sold a thirty-two year old man named Anthony, to a man in New Orleans, LA for $310. This was half of what men similar to Anthony's age and occupations had been sold for in the same span of time. The lower sale price was explained in the notary record as being due to Anthony's old leg injury that had affected him since childhood. Based on the sales of Moses, Bill, Bill Barten, Sam Williams, and Anthony, the value placed on the enslaved changed according to their ability to be sold for high prices. How drastically the price decreased based on injury or illness seemed to depend upon the severity of the injury and the type of labor (field hand, washer, horse trainer, etc.) the enslaved were expected to perform with the injury.
Because of the attention to profits, the physical well-being of the enslaved was important to the traders and other enslavers. The time, effort, and practicality of having to care for the enslaved, as well as the potential loss of profit from not being able to sell an individual, were all motivators to patron the "Infirmary for Slaves." Moore, Upshur, and Rose understood their clientele and worked to provide the services they would require. This awareness was not just in the wording of the advertisements, but from the prices for their service. The "Infirmary for Slaves" was twenty five cents more expensive per day than the services rendered to "coloured persons" in the advertisement by Dr. Archer and Dr. Andrews. The higher price could indicate higher expenses, but likely, it also meant they served a richer clientele. Slave traders were some of the wealthiest individuals in the city according to city tax records.
The advertisements for an infirmary for the enslaved was not similar in tone to the one written for "coloured persons," but it did offer the same services. This advertisement by Dr. Archer and Dr. Andrews' "Infirmary for Coloured Persons" rendered services to both the enslaved and the free blacks in Norfolk. The doctors used language more associated with caring for individuals as humans rather than as products to take care of for others. This was evident from their denial of making profit from the infirmary's establishment. Instead, they appealed to the "public and individual interest" for the advancement of "charity and humanity" to both the enslaved and the freed blacks, referred to as the "coloured persons" living as "part of the Borough." Their dedication to this less profit-oriented approach was their charge of only .75 cents per day and the appeal not only to enslavers for business, but to the neighborhoods of freedpeople in Norfolk.
Infirmaries for the enslaved demonstrated one of the issues for people from the twenty-first century in understanding the full extent of the institution of slavery and of the domestic slave trade. The pervasiveness of the trade and the widespread acceptance of the institution allowed for institutions that are presently associated with care-giving or humanitarian efforts to not only be complacent in the continuation of the slave trade and slavery as a whole, but a necessary and active participant in creating a lucrative trade. The immediate reaction of a modern person would be to assume that medical care was a sign of respect for humanity, a case of indicating how slavery could have been in some way non-violent to those enslaved. However, the profit-oriented nature of the infirmaries were not about recognizing humanity in the enslaved as much as they were about supporting and continuing the institution.
Above and to the Right: Both "Infirmary for Slaves" advertisements were for the same group of doctors. The Talbot Street infirmary was advertised in 1853 and 1854. The infirmary located near Calvert's Lane (present day City Hall) was in operation in 1851 by the same group, but they moved locations to the larger space on Talbot Street sometime in between 1851 and 1853.
Above: This is a notarized sale of twenty five enslaved individuals from Charles Hatcher, a Norfolk trader, to Celestin Chiapella, an enslaver from St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The names of the four individuals with "afflictions" are the last four underlined names on the document. Hatcher's signature can be seen on the bottom right of the page.
8. Trader's Homes and "Runaway Slaves"
As we know, the Norfolk slave traders worked and rented office spaces near each other in Downtown Norfolk. They created their own business networks and communities that allowed them success in the slave trade. This friendliness was also true for their living spaces.
William Hall and Charles Hatcher, slave traders mentioned before for their proximity in office and their transport of one another's "merchandise," also became next-door neighbors between 1838 and 1841. Hall bought his house on the corner of Cumberland Street and Cove Street (present-day City Hall Avenue) in 1838, and in the next few years, Hatcher also purchased a house on Cumberland Street. Hall's address at No. 48 South Cumberland Street, likely placed his house near the entrance of the South parking garage for MacArthur Center, which is across Cumberland Street from St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Hatcher's home was only a few houses away from Hall's. The map above places both homes near the lots labeled 30 and 14.
Two other traders, Caphart and Guy demonstrated this connection between traders through their partnership in owning a private jail near modern Norfolk's City Hall, on St. Paul's Blvd (called Church Street in the 1850s). Although they did not live in as close proximity as Hall and Hatcher, Caphart and Guy represented another trend for trader's houses: living next to or near their offices, jails, or infirmaries. Caphart lived on Church Street and Guy lived on Fenchurch Street, both within just a few blocks from both the Police Station, their private Jail on Calvert's Lane, and each other. George Apperson also followed this trend, as he lived on Calvert's Lane, only a street away from his private jail on Reid's Lane and just a block away from his office on Union Street in the Union Hotel.
It is clear that traders were active participants in their communities, working closely with each other and communicating with city and federal officials to grow the slave trade and related businesses in Norfolk. However, just as traders relied on networks of businesses and acquaintances in the white community, the enslaved relied on their own communities as well.
As traders' communities worked to keep the enslaved oppressed, the black communities, both enslaved and free, worked to thwart the oppressive system. One of the most opportune times for the enslaved to escape was when they were being sold. This was partially because the traders had to market the enslaved as desirable "products." As the historian Walter Johnson, author of Soul by Soul, argued, the enslaved were sometimes in the position to influence their own sales by either not cooperating in their sale or making deals with the traders or the buyers.
Another reason escape often occurred during the sale-process was the hustle and bustle of the transitory areas where sales took place. In Norfolk, these transitory areas were the docks and the ships. As seen with the revolt on the Creole, the close quarters on the ships transporting the enslaved gave them the opportunity to not only plan escape together, but provided a time when traders or ship captains were vulnerable, as ships had limited space for crew and guards. In this context, communities created by the enslaved could be as disparate or unconnected as strangers meeting on a ship, on the docks, or in the auction house.
Revolting on ships were not the only method of escape for the enslaved who were transported by water. According to the pamphlet Norfolk, VA's Underground Railroad, "Waterways to Freedom: A Railroad That Ran On Water," compiled by historian Cassandra Newby-Alexander, when the ships were in port, ship or dock workers could be paid to participate in an escape or at least not report the activity. Some may even have been sympathetic to a planned escape.
When the enslaved did escape from docks, they had limited areas to run. "Waterways of Freedom" explained how escaped slaves could enter the communities of freedpeople located in neighborhoods around Norfolk for some protection. The same pamphlet identified freedpeople's neighborhoods "in and around the Town of Berkley," now located near Harbor Park Stadium, as hot-spots for the famous Underground Railroad, because of their proximity to the wharves. Please see the 1851 Map for Higgins Wharf, which was located near the Town of Berkley and near what is now Harbor Park Stadium.
Unfortunately, the communities and escapees faced the dangers of being caught not only immediately after escape, but for the rest of their lives. Advertisements like the one by the trader Accinelly (see image) littered the newspapers in Norfolk, presenting money as an incentive for people to turn in runaway slaves.
The city of Norfolk and the state of Virginia also had monetary incentive to find and capture fugitive slaves. There were state programs in place that would reimburse localities for keeping runaway slaves until enslavers came to get them; programs to compensate enslavers for their financial loss when the enslaved ran away; and even programs that would allow the state to sell re-captured individuals for state profit if their enslaver could not be identified. According to Virginia State records, the profits from these runaway slave programs were "deposited into the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Literary Fund for the public education of poor white children." This state-wide incentive also put freedpeople at risk of being wrongly imprisoned for suspicion of being a fugitive slave.
While the freedpeople's community and the enslaved worked against the institution of slavery, the close ties within the trader community, along with its local and statewide support, made keeping their freedom as difficult as the initial escape.
Above: The above two images are from the same advertisement written by the Portsmouth trader, Accinelly. For reference, $175 in 1825, when this advertisement was published, is worth $5,317.88 in 2023.
Above: 1851 Map of Norfolk showing Higgin's Wharf and a little bit of the surrounding area, near what is presently Harbor Park Stadium.
**To read more about the operations of the Underground Railroad in Norfolk, please see the link in the "Documentation" portion of this tour to access "Waterways to Freedom: A Railroad That Ran On Water," a tour of Norfolk dedicated specifically to sites relating to the Underground Railroad network.**
9. The Private Jails and Repositories
Both Virginia and its cities profited from the capture of runaway slaves. However, individuals who collected bounties for capturing the enslaved or owned private jails profited just as much, if not more. In Norfolk, VA traders were often the owners of the private jails sometimes referred to as "slave pens" or "repositories."
These jails, "repositories," and "pens" did not function in the same way as modern private jails. Rather than being contracted by government authorities to imprison people who have been convicted of crimes, slave traders' jails acted more as holding cells, with no concern for whether a crime had been committed. Instead, they would confine the enslaved between auctions and transport, or on request of the enslavers who wanted to imprison fugitive or uncooperative slaves.
The three known locations for private jails in Downtown Norfolk were located on Calvert's Lane, Reid's Lane, and East Union Street. These three streets are located in the area now called "Civic Plaza," where City Hall and Norfolk's DMV are now located. There is evidence that other jails or "repositories" were built in sectioned-off areas of the traders' rented office spaces as well, but those were primarily used just for the individual trader's use. The three primary locations can be found on the 1851 Map above.
The jail on Calvert's Lane was co-owned by Guy and Caphart, the policemen, traders, and now jail owners. Their advertisement for the jail from the American Beacon in 1834 (see image) gives insight into the structure of these jails, the so-called accommodations, and the services the jailers could provide customers. By March 1844, the jail was only owned by Elias Guy, with no explanation for the end of Guy and Caphart's partnership.
Notably, the jailers focused on the cleanliness of the jail, its fresh water supply, and the separate apartments for women and men. There was a special emphasis on the "security and comfort" of the establishment for its prisoners. It was not so curious why they wanted to tout the security of a prison, but the importance of comfort for individuals already treated with so little regard was less clear. The answer, unfortunately, was not due to any humanitarian efforts to keep the enslaved comfortable. Likely, as was the case with infirmaries for the enslaved, the decisions and effort put into keeping slaves healthy was done out of concern for the enslaver's or the trader's stake in the enslaved as pieces of property. The death of the enslaved from neglect would be, to traders and enslavers, a waste of money and resources.
The nearby jail on Reid's Lane was owned by George Apperson until 1849. Apperson's jail was not advertised as a place to hold fugitive slaves like Guy and Caphart's. Instead, Apperson used his jail to house the enslaved he intended to sell and transport "to southern states" on ships (see above image).
William Hall's jail or "repository" as he advertised was on the corner of East Union Street and Church Street (now St. Paul's Blvd). Hall endorsed his repository with similar claims to Guy and Caphart. His location had separate, "airy" rooms for different sexes, a large cistern for water, and high walls with large yards for both fresh air and security. Hall differed from the other jailers, however, in that he advertised that he would board and sell the enslaved from the jail, as well as buy the enslaved for "the highest cash market prices" and "make exchanges" of enslaved individuals for an equally valuable enslaved individual. Hall's jail, similar to Apperson's, functioned more as an extension of the jailer's business as a slave trader than as a punitive jail in the way Guy and Caphart's jail functioned.
All three types of jails, whether mostly used to "secure" captured runaway slaves, provide a safe and clean location to hold the enslaved before sale, or even a place to "exchange" slaves, a primary concern of all jailers was keeping the enslaved healthy enough for sale. It was with the jails and infirmaries where the traders' treatment of the enslaved showed the greatest awareness of the enslaved as individuals with the same needs and desire to be free as themselves. It was this familiarity that made the traders' further dehumanization of the enslaved and concern only for profit all the more wicked.
Above: Each newspaper clipping is an example of an advertisement for Apperson, Guy & Caphart, and Hall's jails. They include description of where the jails are, what services they offer, and how to contact them. Each of these advertisements represents only one of many advertisements for each of these traders' jails.
10. The Shops and Supplies
The type of businesses that have in most accounts received the least amount of attention for their connection to the domestic slave trade have been those which are so mundane that they seem comparably unimportant. The clothes and shoe shops represented this group of supporting businesses in Norfolk. They fulfilled a primary need for both traders and enslavers that went beyond simply clothing individuals. Similar to infirmaries, clothing, especially shoes, were a necessity to help prevent physical maladies or illness. To traders, health was important for the future sale of individuals, but to enslavers, continued health, as well as outward appearance, were important aspects of what they saw as an ongoing investment.
Several of the "servant" clothing and shoe shops in Norfolk were located along Main Street and Market Square, with a few also located closer to Norfolk's current City Hall and Court House. The newspaper advertisements attached to this site are only in reference to those closest to the tour's location, near the old Market Square and Main Street. The location of these shops was one of their most notable aspects, as they were in the center of commerce among the wharves, serving both the locals and transient workers that came into port.
Clothing trends or everyday-wear are currently considered a reflection of one's personality or particular style. For the enslaved in the nineteenth century, clothing was a reflection of their status, their occupations, and to some extent the enslaved's clothes were a reflection of the enslavers' wealth. In short, clothes often served a practical as well as symbolic or representative purpose.
There were norms and accepted dress expected by the enslaved. For instance, regardless of sex, enslaved children usually wore a simple dress, and usually without shoes, as seen in the 1830 watercolor. Likewise, domestic slaves, people who worked in the enslavers' houses, would usually dress in well-kept but cheaper material clothes. This is evident in the advertisements for both T. F. Owen's shop called "Market Square Savings Institution" and J.H. Dawson's shipment of blankets and Oznaburg calicoes. Owens advertised Fall and Winter clothes, offering mostly wool-based fabrics such as "kerseys," tweed cassinet, sheep cassinet, flannel, and jean material. Likewise, Dawson's shop pointed out how Oznaburg calicoes were particularly popular for "servant women." (The term "servant" included the enslaved, but could also refer to paid servants.) This fabric was identifiable by where it was made (Oznaburg, Germany) and by its coarse appearance.
The importance of the types of fabric were in part its practical uses, staying protected from seasonal temperature and weather changes, as Owen's advertisement suggested. However, Dawson's advertisement also pointed out that style, or at least fabric quality also played a role in how the enslaved dressed and how the enslavers dressed them. The most important part about clothing the enslaved to the enslavers was the cost and longevity of the clothes. The fabric advertised needed to be of substantial quality, not necessarily for the benefit of the enslaved, but for the benefit of the enslaver. The stronger the fabric, the less often it would need to be replaced, and the least amount of money expended for clothing the enslaved.
This economic motivation was particularly clear when dressing field hands. The enslaved who worked outside away from visitors or the enslavers' family had the cheapest and most worn out clothes of all. The image of the two young men who escaped in Baton Rouge was an example of the clothing for field hands. One of the boys was barefoot, their pants were in tatters, and their clothes show signs of having been mended several times over. Clearly, their appearance and replacing clothes was of less importance to the enslavers than their continued labor. Similarly, the W. H. Addington shoe advertisement demonstrated that different products were sold depending upon the work the enslaved were expected to do. For instance, shoes were sold for "House Servants" or "outdoor women."
In the instances of the traders and enslavers, the clothing of the enslaved mattered for the purpose of making profit, but for enslavers, clothing was also symbolic of power. The 1857 memoir, Twenty-two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman, of a Virginian slave named Austin Steward exhibited this connection between the enslaved's dress, the symbolic importance it held to the enslavers, and the complex emotions the differences in dress between domestic slaves and field hands evoked in the enslaved.
In this scene from his memoir, Steward described a dance at his enslaver, Capt. William Helm's plantation. He described the house slaves as "aristocratic slaves" and talked about how the field hands felt about the different treatment between the slaves who worked in the house and field. Most notably, Steward pointed out the irony of Helm's different treatment of the enslaved and suggested that the different manner of dress was more related to fear of losing power than more practical purposes:
"The night for the dance came at last, and long before the time, the road leading to Col. Alexander’s plantation presented a gay spectacle. The females were seen flocking to the place of resort, with heads adorned with gaudy bandanna turbans and new calico dresses, of the gayest colors, – their whole attire decked over with bits of gauze ribbon and other fantastic finery. The shades of night soon closed over the plantation, and then could be heard the rude music and loud laugh of the unpolished slave. It was about ten o’clock when the aristocratic slaves began to assemble, dressed in the cast-off finery of their master and mistress, swelling out and putting on airs in imitation of those they were forced to obey from day to day."
. . .
"House servants were of course, “the stars” of the party; all eyes were turned to them to see how they conducted, for they, among slaves, are what a military man would call 'fugle-men.' The field hands, and such of them as have generally been excluded from the dwelling of their owners, look to the house servant as a pattern of politeness and gentility. And indeed, it is often the only method of obtaining any knowledge of the manners of what is called 'genteel society;' hence, they are ever regarded as a privileged class; and are sometimes greatly envied, while others are bitterly hated. And too often justly, for many of them are the most despicable tale-bearers and mischief-makers, who will, for the sake of the favor of his master or mistress, frequently betray his fellow-slave, and by tattling, get him severely whipped; and for these acts of perfidy, and sometimes downright falsehood, he is often rewarded by his master, who knows it is for his interest to keep such ones about him; though he is sometimes obliged, in addition to a reward, to send him away, for fear of the vengeance of the betrayed slaves. In the family of his master, the example of bribery and treachery is ever set before him, hence it is, that insurrections and stampedes are so generally detected. Such slaves are always treated with more affability than others, for the slave-holder is well aware that he stands over a volcano, that may at any moment rock his foundation to the center, and with one mighty burst of its long suppressed fire, sweep him and his family to destruction. When he lies down at night, he knows not but that ere another morning shall dawn, he may be left mangled and bleeding, and at the mercy of those maddened slaves whom he has so long ruled with a rod of iron."
It seems obvious that different clothing and shoe-wear would be used for different occupations. That aspect of dressing to accommodate work was not unique to the enslaved, but could be applied to the whites and blacks working all throughout Norfolk. However, the economic motivations behind why certain cloths were popular for enslaved, what the types of dress signaled to other enslavers or enslaved, the interactions between the clothing shops and the traders, and even more relevant, the fragile relationship between the enslaved and the enslavers that clothing could reveal were more examples of how every aspect of the slave trade and slavery more generally was never as simple or as straightforward as one might think. The burden and onus of slavery was not with just one group of people, such as the traders or their buyers, it was a wide-reaching system that touched every aspect of every business, city, and state, including clothing shops.
Above: An 1830 watercolor portrait of an enslaved girl painted by Mary Randolph Custis, Robert E. Lee's future wife, in 1830. The portrait includes details of a child's attire, notably with no shoes and a long dress with a smock over it.
Above: A photograph taken by in Baton Rouge, LA by McPherson & Oliver between 1861 and 1865 of "two unidentified escaped slaves wearing ragged clothes." The clothes on the two young men demonstrated both the clothing style and the condition clothes for the enslaved within the declining years of the Domestic Slave Trade.
Above: A photo taken between 1862 and 1869 of a black woman standing in front of what is believed to be Franklin & Armfield's prison in Alexandria, VA. Although not a woman from Norfolk, this photo does give an example of how freedwomen would have dressed in Virginia within a five to ten year time frame the accompanying Norfolk advertisements for "servant" or "negro" clothing were published.
11. The Ferry: From Norfolk to Portsmouth
Below: A map of Norfolk & Portsmouth, Virginia from 1873. In this image, one can view the small building of the Ferry Point jail and the taller building of the courthouse highlighted in yellow. These were the exact locations for each building and likely similar to their true structures. This map also includes the same level of detail for Norfolk and Portsmouth buildings and roads. For a complete view of this map and to look at it in more detail, please see the "Documentation" portion of this site.
Below: The same 1851 Map of the city of Norfolk, the town of Portsmouth, and Washington Point that has been used to show street views of locations throughout the tour. For a complete view of this map and to look at it in more detail, please see the "Documentation" portion of this site.
"Ferry Point Jail" was advertised by Wilson Glenn in the Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald in 1829, making it one of the earliest confirmed examples of slave jails in Norfolk during the domestic slave trade. Records about who Wilson Glenn was have not yet been found, but his advertisement for his jail did emphasize how familiar he was with the area's slave trade. Even so, there is no evidence outside of this newspaper that Glenn was as active a trader as the ones mentioned previously. In the end, Glenn as an individual trader was less important than the functions of his jail, its location next to the old Portsmouth courthouse, and Washington Point's role in the domestic slave trade and fugitive slave business.
According to Glenn's advertisement, the Ferry Point Jail functioned in the same capacity as Apperson's, Caphart and Guy's, and Hall's jails from location nine, "The Private Jails and Repositories." Similar to the jails in Downtown Norfolk, Glenn advertised the jail's cleanliness and its usefulness for "lodge" the enslaved the traders were waiting to sell (see "Ferry Point Jail" image for more details).
Unlike the jails in Downtown Norfolk, however, the location of this jail was one of its most important aspects. Rather than a location in the more crowded portion of the city, this jail served multiple communities. The jail, located next to the old court house for Portsmouth, served the communities of Portsmouth and the more rural communities in what is now Chesapeake. The jail's location across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk allowed it to have a completely different customer base.
Even more, the ferry route has been connected to the Underground Railroad in the "Waterways to Freedom" pamphlet. According to the pamphlet, the use of slave labor on the ports, along with the free black laborers, helped disguise individuals trying to escape along the wharves via ferries, schooners, and other shipping vessels. It is likely, therefore, that escaped slaves made their way aboard the Norfolk-Portsmouth ferry and disembarking either in Portsmouth or on Washington Point to escape to less crowded and less policed areas.
As the we go from Norfolk to Portsmouth, it is important to note that while the cities were part of the same county in the nineteenth century, their role in the domestic slave trade differed from the major port of Norfolk. Portsmouth's port was used for the transport of slaves, but their major role in the early domestic slave trade was primarily in ship building or repair. This is most clearly seen by one of Portsmouth's most active slave traders, Bartholomew Accinelly.
While Norfolk and Portsmouth are separate cities today, they were both a part of Norfolk County until 1871. The cities have a close relationship, as they are connected through a shared history dating back to the colonial period and geographic tie of the Elizabeth River. For this next location, it is recommended that you board the Norfolk-Portsmouth Ferry, as the remaining locations are along the river and in the City of Portsmouth.
As you leave Norfolk on the ferry to Portsmouth, look toward the Navy vessels docked in what is now General Dynamics Nassco Shipyard. That area, now completely covered in industry, was called Ferry Point or Washington Point in the mid nineteenth century. Largely forgotten, Washington Point used to hold a courthouse and private jail that played a role in the domestic slave trade in Norfolk.
Above: A clipping from the American Beacon published in 1823 discussing the sale of slaves in a tavern on Ferry Point, also known as Washington Point.
12. The Wharves (Portsmouth)
Above: A map of Portsmouth from 1861, showing the wharves located along the Elizabeth River, with High Street in the center, ending in the Ferry Wharf. Since Accinelly was one of the earliest active traders in Portsmouth and Norfolk, there is no map with his wharf's exact location pinpointed. However, property records from Norfolk County and the deeds for houses specifically place his wharf "at the foot of high street" where the Ferry Wharf and R. R. Wharf are located in the map above.
Above: A sketch of Gosport shipyard in 1845. While Gosport was located down the river from Accinelly's wharf and shipbuilding location, this is an example of what a shipyard looked like in the decades following Accinelly's operations.
Above: A map of Portsmouth from 1873, showing the Seaboard and Roanoke Rail Road Company in the place of Accinelly's Wharf, later called Rail Road Wharf, near the Norfolk and Portsmouth Ferry. While out of the timeline for the Domestic Slave Trade, this map does show a clear image of Portsmouth that can be easily compared to the earlier map above. It also demonstrates how little the streets of Portsmouth changed from the 1820s to present day, with all the streets sharing the same names and locations as the ones from the nineteenth century. The street in the middle with the rail lines and the court house is High Street.
Above: A 1985 image of the Seaboard building during remodel. The Seaboard Building now stands in the area of Portsmouth where Accinelly's shipbuilding wharf was located.
Above: An 1886 sketch of Portsmouth's port. By 1886, it had been too long to look exactly like the port of 1820s. However, with this area now functioning as a pedestrian walkway, this image is helpful in imagining how Portsmouth shipbuilding and shipping industries used to be active along the Elizabeth River, even up to High Street.
Stepping off the ferry, you have arrived at the location of Ferry Wharf as seen in the 1861 map of Portsmouth. This is the same route the ferry would have taken a passenger across in the nineteenth century.
As mentioned in the Norfolk tour location "The Traders," Bartholomew Accinelly was one of the earliest domestic traders to operate along the Elizabeth River. However, Accinelly and his partner Stephen Peillon were slave traders in Portsmouth rather than Norfolk. Between the 1820s to his death in 1832, his profession was recorded as "shipbuilder." He owned and operated a shipyard on a wharf located at the foot of High Street, likely where the "R.R. Wharf" is located on the 1861 map and where the Seaboard & Roanoke Rail Road Company was situated on the map from 1889 (see images).
During the same time, he sent at least twenty eight ships, including the schooners the Georgiana, the James Monroe and the Ceres to New Orleans, LA. The transport of 411 slaves aboard Accinelly's ships have been confirmed, but it is likely that the number is much higher, because his trading business was well-established.
His grandson-in-law lived in New Orleans, LA and acted as his agent for the selling of the slaves sent from Norfolk to New Orleans. In New Orleans, Peillon could have had contact with more prolific traders like the Woolfolks. A fellow Norfolk trader named James Barnes Diggs who operated during the 1820s, had confirmed trades with Austin Woolfolk in the records of the notary public William Boswell in New Orleans within a week of sales made by Peillon. As earlier sites have shown, it was not uncommon for Norfolk traders to communicate and deal with one another, making it possible that Peillon had powerful connections in New Orleans to expand Accinelly's and his own trade.
Sending Peillon to New Orleans was not a strategy of a trader contented with dealing in slaves only in Norfolk. Accinelly's shipbuilding business also gave them freer access to the transport of slaves than later traders. The access to ships, as well as Peillon's presence in New Orleans indicated how Accinelly and his family were surely more involved in the slave trade than the scant records can indicate.
Accinelly's and Peillon's trade quickly ended when Peillon died on a ship back to Norfolk in 1830. There were no surviving records that indicated Accinelly continued the trade without Peillon. Two years later Accinelly died, ending their trade for good.
Although Accinelly was not an active trader for long, he advertised his business a lot while he was in business. Most significantly, Accinelly seemed to have the most trouble with fugitive slaves, placing advertisements in the papers for rewards in re-capturing the slaves who escaped him aboard his ships. Several slaves were recorded as missing aboard the brig Hollon when it was docked in Norfolk in 1824. The escapees from the Hollon while it was in port is an example of escapes described in the "Waterways to Freedom" pamphlet about the Underground Railroad in Norfolk coming to fruition even in the earlier days of the domestic slave trade in Norfolk.
13. Accinelly's House and The Court Houses
Above: A map of Portsmouth from 1851, showing the wharves located along the Elizabeth River, with High Street in the center, connecting to the Ferry Landing. The location of the Court House is also located on High Street and marked on the map with the building's outline. The deeds for Accinelly's house indicated that he bought a home in the block labeled "King" in plot 117 in 1822. Accinelly also purchased a "two-story brick apartment building" located in the block labeled "Edinburgh," on Crawford and County Streets in lot 22 in 1830.
Above: A map of Portsmouth from 1861, showing the wharves located along the Elizabeth River, with High Street in the center, ending in the Ferry Wharf. The Market House location can be seen on Crawford Street, marked with a black rectangle.
Above: An 1886 illustration of the Courthouse from the book, Portsmouth Under Four Flags. This courthouse was built in 1846, nearly twenty years after Accinelly began his trade, but was likely a central part of Portsmouth's in the slave trade business after Accinelly's death. The courthouse referenced in newspapers between 1803 and 1846 was likely the courthouse on the Northeast corner of Court Street along High Street, just across Court Street from 1846 courthouse in this image.
Above: A clipping of "Auction Sales" for an auction that would be taking place in front of the Portsmouth courthouse door in 1829. This was likely the courthouse on the Northeastern side of Court Street, across the street from the 1846 historic Portsmouth Courthouse on the corner of Court and High Street.
Portsmouth's Courthouses changed several times before the 1846 Courthouse was built. Portsmouth utilized the courthouse located on Ferry Point until its citizens petitioned for a new courthouse to be built closer to the Town of Portsmouth. The new building was completed in 1803 Portsmouth on the northeast corner of High and Court Streets. This 1803 courthouse is now located where the TCC Visual Arts Center stands.
This 1803 courthouse building was the one functioning during Accinelly's time as a slave trader, and was the likely location of the courthouse referenced in the "Auction Sales" newspaper clippings. The evidence from auction advertisements specifying auctions at Portsmouth courthouse corroborates with what is known about slave auctions in Norfolk. Courthouses were often sites of slave auctions.
Accinelly likely chose his house based on this proximity to the courthouse, as he purchased the home in 1822, at the start of his slave trade business. As most slave traders in Norfolk operated their trade from their homes in some capacity, it is reasonable to assume Accinelly chose the location of his home with his trading business in mind.
There is much still to uncover about Portsmouth's role in the Domestic Slave Trade. It is clear that the city was a participant in the trade from records of slave auctions from the steps of the courthouse. Records of Accinelly's slave trade business also helped show the earliest records of the Domestic Slave Trade in Norfolk and Portsmouth. Similar to Norfolk traders, he was reliant on the river for his trade, he struggled with fugitive slaves escaping from his wharf, and he purchased property in proximity to the docks and high-traffic areas associated with slave auctions. Overall, Accinelly followed the same business model and trends seen in the following decades with Norfolk traders. Both Norfolk and Portsmouth's courthouses and wharves played a role in making the domestic slave trade possible.
Below: Three clippings of "Auction Sales" for auctions that would be taking place in front of the Portsmouth courthouse door between January and December of 1830. This was likely the courthouse on the Northeastern side of Court Street, across the street from the 1846 historic Portsmouth Courthouse on the corner of Court and High Street.
Similar to the Norfolk traders in the following decades, Accinelly chose a house that was located near the hub of trade and business.
In the map of Portsmouth from 1851, Accinelly's home was located in the block labeled "King" in plot 117. This house was only a block away from Portsmouth's Courthouses and old Market Square.
Like Norfolk, Portsmouth also had a Market Square. The locations of this market, however, moved during Accinelly's trading years. An early Market Square was located in the plot labeled "Market" between Middle and Court Streets, but burned down in 1821. After it was destroyed, the official market house was moved to a location on Crawford Street, between High and Court Streets. This location for the market house is visible on the map from 1861, where it is in close proximity to the wharves.
The first market location was across the street from the 1803-1846 courthouse and was recorded as a bustling place for merchants to do business. It is unclear whether slaves were included at this first market place site.
Once the market moved closer to the wharves, it was described as having different stalls for merchants to sell goods, but again, there has not yet been any definitive evidence of slaves sold at the market. Although there are few records found about Portsmouth's market, it is likely it functioned similarly to Norfolk's Market Square, because of its location next to the wharves.
As Norfolk traders became more established, they often rented office spaces closer to the wharves. Accinelly potentially followed this same trend. In 1830, Accinelly purchased a "two-story brick apartment building" located in the block labeled "Edinburgh," on Crawford and County Streets in lot 22. This apartment was in close proximity to both his wharf, his shipbuilding business, trading business, and the new market square. It is possible Accinelly purchased the apartment with the intention of making it his official office as the Norfolk traders often did during the same time. However, Peillon's death, and the subsequent end to Accinelly's trading business in the same year he purchased the apartment, makes the intent behind the purchase less definitive.
While there were no records of slave auctions found referring to either Portsmouth market locations, the market from prior to 1822 was located right across the street from the Portsmouth courthouses. Its proximity to the courthouses makes open-air slave auctions a possibility.
This walking tour was created in Spring 2023 by Gillian Hardy, an ODU History Graduate student who was part of a collaborative internship program between the Norfolk Historical Society, Old Dominion University's History Graduate Program, and the Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library. The information and images presented are only intended to be for educational purposes only.
