Documents

From the Rice Carter Ballard Papers at the University of North Carolina’s Manuscripts Department and part of the Southern Historical Collection is this information about Ballard, (circa 1800-1860) was a slave trader based in Richmond who worked in partnership with the large slave trading firm of Isaac Franklin and John Armfield in the late 1820s and early 1830s. By the early 1840s, Ballard had settled down as a planter with several plantations in the Mississippi Valley. The collection includes letters, financial and legal materials, volumes, and other material documenting Rice Ballard's life as a slave trader and planter. Letters and financial records, 1820s-early 1830s, document day-to-day operations of the interstate slave trade among Ballard in Richmond and Natchez, Miss., John Armfield in Alexandria, Va., and Isaac Franklin in Natchez, Miss., and New Orleans, La. 

Collection Number 4850

1.2, Folder 18

Bacon Tait’s Letter from Richmond 2 August 1836

Tait is informing Ballard that within his Richmond jail there has recently been one case of measles. Tait had investigated the situation and told Ballard that he has never had anything like the measles “about his JAIL in months.”

Also, in this same letter he informs Ballard that a “William Ea(s)tow has 100 negroes for sale.”  The market on this date is bearing prime (“not yearlings”) males slaves at $1200.00 and women at $850.00.

The following excerpts are from Slave Trading in the Old South by Frederic Bancroft. Originally published in 1931, Bancroft's book includes a chapter on Virginia slavery and Richmond's slave market and a chapter that references Richmond based ship and railroad transports of slaves. This book is primarily based upon his own interviews with former slaves, on former slave narratives, or from white travelers.

Bancroft's chapter on "Virginia and the Richmond Market" highlights the location and description of Robert Lumpkin's Slave Jail. It includes information about its success and property fixtures in 1852. Slave jails were a place where "careful large buyers or sellers desiring secure custody" and proximity to their slaves could receive accommodations.

"In 1852, Robert Lumpkin, George W. Apperson, and G.W. Atkinson each had a slave-jail in Birch Alley. Lumpkin, who also has a livery stable, was so prosperous that this alley took his name. That was, indeed, distinction in the trade." -- from Slave Trading in the Old South by Frederic Bancroft, 1931, P. 101.

 

Bancroft includes the recollection of Otis Bigelow, a Syracuse native "who spent most of his manhood in D.C. and Maryland."  When his travels brought him to Richmond, he followed a slave purchaser to see where the slave would be held overnight. 

"I went far enough in the rear not to be noticed until he turned into an entrance, over which was the sign 'LUMPKIN'S JAIL.' I entered a large open court. Against on of the posts sat a good natured fat man, with his chair tipped back. It was Mr. Lumpkin. I duly introduced myself as from New York, remarking that I had read what the Abolitionists had to say, and that I had come to Richmond to see for myself. Mr. Lumpkin received me courteously and showed me over his jail. On one side of the open court was a large tank for washing, or lavatory. Opposite was a long, two-story brick house, the lower court fitted up for men and the second story for women. The place, in fact, was a kind of hotel or boardinghouse for negro-traders and their slaves." -- from Slave Trading in the Old South by Frederic Bancroft, 1931, PP. 102-103.

From The Slave States of America, Vol. 2, by James Silk Buckingham, 1842. Buckingham devotes one chapter to Richmond, Virginia in his two volume publication about slavery in the United States. In this short section he describes his visit to Monumental Church, located at 1224 E. Broad Street, near the MCV campus of VCU. Monumental Church was built 1812-1814 by architect Robert Mills to commemorate the 72 people who died on the site in the December 26, 1811 Richmond Theatre Fire.

The church is octagonal in form; and under a dark and heavy portico, or rather arcade, in front, is a square monument, surmounted by a funeral urn, on the four sides of which are inscribed the names of the principal persons who perished in the conflagration of the theatre; the names of the males on two of its sides, and that of the females on the others; but with no narrative or record of the occasion of their death, or the time and manner of its occurrence; so that a stranger, examining it without a friend or guide, would be wholly at a lost to know why so many names were there. This is an omission which ought surely to be remedied, and every year that passes by will render it more and more necessary.

I was struck with observing some few names inscribed outside the general record, lower down, and near the very foot of the monument, which I took at first for the names of the sculptor, designer, and architect. But on examining them, I found they were female names; I asked why they were thus excluded from association with the rest, and the answer given me was – “Oh! They were coloured people,” and this was deemed sufficient. I learnt afterwards that they were all favourite [sic] and faithful slaves, who had attended their mistresses to the theatre, and that, therefore, their names were inscribed, but in the lower compartment, away from all connection with those above. I could not help asking those who told me this, whether, if they entered the same heaven, the distinctions would still be preserved hereafter; but the parties were silent, and made no reply.”

-- from The Slave States of America, Vol. 2, by James Silk Buckingham, 1842, PP. 422-423.

Below are excerpts from Charles H. Corey’s, A History of the Richmond Theological Seminary with Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Work Among the Colored People of the South (J.W. Randolph Co., Richmond, 1895).

Lumpkin’s jail has been referred to. Perhaps it may well, at this time, to give further particulars concerning this place. It was situated in “The Bottom” between Franklin and Broad Streets, on the west side of Shockoe Creek. It occupied a portion of the ground now covered by the establishment of Chamblin, Delaney & Scott. A narrow lane known as Wall Street, properly Fifteenth Street, led to it. This establishment, which has been often spoken of as the “old slave pen,” consisted of four buildings, which were of brick. One was used by the proprietor as his residence and his office. Another was used as a boarding-house for the accommodation of those who came to sell their slaves or to buy. A third served as a bar-room and a kitchen. The “old jail” stood in a field a few rods from the other buildings. It was forty-one feet long and two stories in height, with a piazza to both stories on the north side of the building. Here men and women were lodged for safe-keeping, until they were disposed of at private or public sale [PP. 46-48].

It was putting me in a place known as the whipping room, and on the floor of that room were rings. The individual would be laid down, his hands and feet stretched out and fastened in the rings, and a great big man would stand over him and flog him [P. 50].

 Lumpkin’s slave-pen consisted of about half an acre of land near the center of the older portion of Richmond. The patch lay very low in a deep hollow or “bottom,” as it might be called, through which a small stream of water ran very slowly. In reaching this place of sighs from Broad Street, one had to climb down the incline of a sandy embankment nearly one hundred feet. The descent was steep, irregular, and in some places difficult. In approaching the place from the Franklin Street side, the descent was quite gradual and easy by means of a narrow, crooked, and untidy lane. Around the outer borders of the said half-acre was a fence, in some places ten or twelve feet in height. Inside the fence, and very close to it, was a tall old brick building which Lumpkin had used for his dwelling-house. Near by were other buildings, also of brick, where he used to shelter the more peaceable of his slave-gangs that were brought to him from time to time to be sold. But in the center of the plot was the chief object of interest—a low, rough, brick building known as “the slave jail.” In this building Lumpkin was accustomed to imprison the disobedient and punish the refractory. The stout iron bars were still to be seen across one or more of the windows during my repeated visits to the place. In the rough floor, and at about the center of it, was the stout iron staple and whipping ring. It was in this old jail—this place of horrible memories to the blacks—that I found that noble man of God, Reverend Charles H. Corey, engaged in teaching a company of freedmen preachers [PP. 75-77].

In the tall old dwelling house of the late Mr. Lumpkin, Dr. Corey kept house with his devoted, self-sacrificing, New England wife . . . . For hideous as were the surroundings, a whole race had been born in a day into liberty. In the other buildings above alluded to, colored students for the ministry were living and boarding in common. They too were happy. Glad faces greeted me on every side. The old slave pen was no longer the “devil’s half acre” but “God’s half acre” [P. 76].

-- from Charles H. Corey’s, A History of the Richmond Theological Seminary with Reminiscences of Thirty Years’ Work Among the Colored People of the South (J.W. Randolph Co., Richmond, 1895)

 

From A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on their Economy by Frederick Law Olmsted, 1856. Olmsted devotes over 40 pages of his book to describing Richmond and slave life. A copy of this book is housed in Special Collections and Archives, VCU Libraries. It is also available online at Google Books.

"Near the post office, opposite a large livery and sale stable, I turned into a short, broad street, in which were a number of establishments, the signs on which indicated that they were occupied by "Slave Dealers," and that "Slaves, for Sale or to Hire," were to be found within them. They were much like Intelligence Offices, being large rooms partly occupied by ranges of forms, on which sat a few comfortably and neatly clad negroes, who appeared perfectly cheerful; each grinning obsequiously, but with a manifest interest or anxiety, when I fixed my eye on them for a moment.

In Chambers' Journal for October, 1853 there is an account [written by William Chambers] of the Richmond slave marts, and the manner of conducting business in them, so graphic and evidently truthful that I omit any further narration of my own observations, to make room for it. I do this, notwithstanding its length, because I did not happen to witness, during fourteen months that I spent in the Slave States, any sale of negroes by auction. This must not be taken as an indication that negro auctions are not of frequent occurrence (I did not, so far as I now recollect, witness the sale of anything else, at auction, at the South). I saw negroes advertised to be sold at auction, very frequently.

" The exposure of ordinary goods in a store is not more open to the public than are the sales of slaves in Richmond. By consulting the local newspapers, I learned that the sales take place by auction every morning in the offices of certain brokers, who, as I understood by the terms of their advertisements, purchased or received slaves for sale on commission.

" Where the street was in which the brokers conducted their business, I did not know ; but the discovery was easily made. Rambling down the main street in the city, I found that the subject of my search was a narrow and short thoroughfare, turning off to the left, and terminating in a similar cross thoroughfare. Both streets, lined with brick-houses, were dull and silent , There was not a person to whom I could put a question. Looking about, I observed the office of a commission-agent, and into it I stepped. Conceive the idea of a large shop with two windows, and a door between ; no shelving or counters inside ; the interior a spacious, dismal apartment, not well swept; the only furniture a desk at one of the windows, and a bench at one side of the shop, three feet high, with two steps to it from the floor. I say, conceive the idea of this dismal-looking place, with nobody in it but three negro children, who, as I entered, were playing at auctioneering each other. An intensely black little negro, of four or five years of age, was standing on the bench, or block, as it is called, with an equally black girl, about a year younger, by his side, whom he was pretending to sell by bids to another black child, who was rolling about the floor.

" My appearance did not interrupt the merriment. The little auctioneer continued his mimic play, and appeared to enjoy the joke of selling the girl, who stood demurely by his side.

" ' Fifty dolla for de gal—fifty dolla—fifty dolla—I sell dis here fine gal for fifty dolla,' was uttered with extraordinary volubility by the woolly-headed urchin, accompanied with appropriate gestures, in imitation, doubtless of the scenes he had seen enacted daily in the spot , I spoke a few words to the little creatures, but was scarcely understood; and the fun went on as if I had not been present: so I left them, happy in rehearsing what was likely soon to be their own fate."

-- from Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on their Economy by Frederick Law Olmsted, 1856, PP. 31-33.

Runaway slave advertisement for a young teenage boy named

Billy from the Richmond Enquirer, April 12, 1808, held by Special Collections and Archives.

Excerpts from Charles Emery Stevens’, Anthony Burns: A History (electronic edition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; originally published 1856), PP. 187-94. The short introduction about Anthony Burns was written by Matthew R. Laird, Ph.D. James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc.

Anthony Burns was an African-American man who escaped from slavery in Virginia in 1854 and made his way to Boston. Two months later he was arrested and tried under the Fugitive Slave Law. Despite considerable popular protest, Burns was returned to Richmond, where he was held for four months in Lumpkin’s Jail. In February 1855, abolitionists raised sufficient funds to purchase him from his master. He returned to the North and became a pastor, and eventually moved to Canada, where he died in 1862 at the age of 28. This contemporary narrative of his ordeal was originally published in 1856.

Brent was accompanied to the jail by one Robert Lumpkin, a noted trader in slaves. This man belonged to a class of persons by whose society the slaveholders of the South profess to feel disgraced, but with whose services, nevertheless, they cannot dispense. He had formerly been engaged exclusively in the traffic in slaves. Roaming over the country, and picking up a husband here, a wife there, a mother in one place, and an alluring maiden in another, he banded them with iron links into a coffle and sent them to the far southern market. By his ability and success in this remorseless business, he had greatly distinguished himself, and had come to be known as a "bully trader." At this time, however, he had abandoned the business of an itinerant trader, and was established in Richmond as the proprietor of a Trader's Jail. In this he kept and furnished with board such slaves as were brought into the city for sale, and, generally, all such as their owners wished to punish or to provide with temporary safe keeping. He also kept a boardinghouse for the owners themselves. Lumpkin's Jail was one of the prominent and characteristic features of the capital of Virginia. It was a large brick structure, three stories in height, situated in the outskirts of Richmond, and surrounded by an acre of ground. The whole was enclosed by a high, close fence, the top of which was thickly set with iron spikes.

To the proprietor of this prison, Burns was now delivered up by Brent. He was ordered by Lumpkin to put his hands behind him; this done, the jail-keeper proceeded to fasten them together in that position with a pair of iron handcuffs. Then, directing Anthony to move on before, he followed him closely behind until they arrived at his jail.

Here he was destined to suffer, for four months, such revolting treatment as the vilest felons never undergo, and such as only revengeful slaveholders can inflict. The place of his confinement was a room only six or eight feet square, in the upper story of the jail, which was accessible only through a trap-door. He was allowed neither bed nor air; a rude bench fastened against the wall and a single, coarse blanket were the only means of repose. After entering his cell, the handcuffs were not removed, but, in addition, fetters were placed upon his feet. In this manacled condition he was kept during the greater part of his confinement. The torture which he suffered, in consequence, was excruciating. The gripe of the irons impeded the circulation of his blood, made hot and rapid by the stifling atmosphere, and caused his feet to swell enormously. The flesh was worn from his wrists, and when the wounds had healed, there remained broad scars as perpetual witnesses against his owner. The fetters also prevented him from removing his clothing by day or night, and no one came to help him; the indecency resulting from such a condition is too revolting for description, or even thought. His room became more foul and noisome than the hovel of a brute; loathsome creeping things multiplied and rioted in the filth. His food consisted of a piece of coarse corn-bread and the parings of bacon or putrid meat. This fare, supplied to him once a day, he was compelled to devour without Plate, knife, or fork. Immured, as he was, in a narrow, unventilated room, beneath the heated roof of the jail, a constant supply of fresh water would have been a heavenly boon; but the only means of quenching his thirst was the nauseating contents of a pail that was replenished only once or twice a week. Living under such an accumulation of atrocities, he at length fell seriously ill. This brought about some mitigation of his treatment; his fetters were removed for a time, and he was supplied with broth, which, compared with his previous food, was luxury itself.

When first confined in the jail, he became an object of curiosity to all who had heard of his case, and twenty or thirty persons in a day would call to gaze upon him. On these occasions, his fetters were taken off and he was conducted down to the piazza in front of the jail. His visitors improved the opportunity to express their opinion of his deserts; having no pecuniary interest in his life, they were anxious that it should be sacrificed for the general good of slaveholders. When curiosity was satisfied, he would be led back to his cell, and again placed in irons. These exhibitions occurred ordinarily once a day during the first two or three weeks, and, though humiliating, furnished a relief to the solitude of his confinement. There were other slaves in the jail, who were allowed more or less intercourse with each other; but between them and Burns all communication was strictly prohibited. The taint of freedom was upon him, and infection was dreaded.

His residence in the jail gave him an opportunity of gaining new views of the system of slavery. One day his attention was attracted by a noise in the room beneath him. There was a sound as of a woman entreating and sobbing, and of a man addressing to her commands mingled with oaths. Looking down through a crevice in the floor, Burns beheld a slave woman stark naked in the presence of two men. One of them was an overseer, and the other a person who had come to purchase a slave. The overseer had compelled the woman to disrobe in order that the purchaser might see for himself whether she was well formed and sound in body. Burns was horror-stricken; all his previous experience had not made him aware of such an outrage. This, however, was not an exceptional case; he found it was the ordinary custom in Lumpkin's jail thus to expose the naked person of the slave, both male and female, to the inspection of the purchaser. A wider range of observation would have enabled him to see that it was the universal custom in the slave states.

In spite of the interdict under which he was laid, Burns found a method of communicating with other slaves in the jail. It has been stated that during his illness he was released from his fetters and supplied with broth. The spoon given him to eat with, on that occasion, he contrived to secrete, and when alone, he used it in enlarging a small hole in the floor. It was just behind the trap-door, by which, when thrown open, it was entirely hidden from view, and thus escaped discovery. Through this hole Burns made known his situation to some slaves in a room below, and at once enlisted their sympathies. The intercourse thus established was afterward regularly maintained. To avoid detection, it was carried on only at dead of night; then, throwing himself prostrate upon the floor and applying his mouth to the aperture, Burns whiled away hour after hour in converse with his more fortunate fellow bondmen. He filled their eager and wondering ears with the story of his escape from bondage, his free and happy life at the North, his capture, and the mighty effort that it cost the Government to restore him to Virginia. He was their Columbus, telling them of the land, to them unknown, which he had visited; inspiring them with longings to follow in his track; and warning them, out of his own experience, of the perils to be avoided. On their part, they communicated to him such information as their less restricted condition had enabled them to obtain. Conversation was not the only advantage that he derived from this quarter. His new friends furnished him with tobacco and matches, so that, during the long night watches, he was able to solace himself by smoking.

After a while, he found a friend in the family of Lumpkin. The wife of this man was a "yellow woman" whom he had married as much from necessity as from choice, the white women of the South refusing to connect themselves with professed slave traders. This woman manifested her compassion for Burns by giving him a testament and a hymnbook. Upon most slaves these gifts would have been thrown away; fortunately for Burns, he had learned to read, and the books proved a very treasure. Besides the yellow wife, Lumpkin had a black concubine, and she also manifested a friendly spirit toward the prisoner. The house of Lumpkin was separated from the jail only by the yard, and from one of the upper windows the girl contrived to hold conversations with Anthony, whose apartment was directly opposite. Her compassion, it is not unlikely, changed into a warmer feeling; she was discovered one day by her lord and master; what he overheard roused his jealousy, and he took effectual means to break off the intercourse.

In the search of Anthony's person at the common jail, some things had escaped discovery. He had concealed between the parts of his clothing a little money, some writing paper, and a pen, and these he still retained. Ink only was wanting, and this, through the aid of his prison friends, he also secured. Thus furnished, he wrote several letters to his friends at a distance; in all there were six, two of which were addressed to persons in Boston. To secure their transmission to the post-office, he adopted the following method: The letter was fastened to a piece of brick dug from the wall; then watching at his window until he saw some negro passing outside the jail fence, he contrived by signs to attract his attention and throw to him the letter. The passer-by was in all probability an entire stranger, as well as a person unable to read, yet Burns trusted, not unreasonably, that his wishes would be rightly interpreted, and that his letters would reach the post-office. No answers were expected in return, none would have reached him had they been written. The postmaster at the South, albeit an officer of the Federal Government, is not the less an obsequious servant of the slaveholder. If a letter addressed to a slave bears a southern post-mark, it is delivered to its laimant without question; but when the post-mark indicates a northern origin, the postmaster withholds it from the claimant, inquires his master's name, and then deposits it in the latter's box. If the letter is found to be objectionable, it is destroyed and nothing is said about it; if otherwise, the master reads to his slave such portions as he sees fit. One of the letters written by Burns was addressed to Col. Suttle, giving an account of his illness. Suttle immediately wrote to Brent upon the subject, and the confounded agent hastened to the jail for an explanation. Burns frankly told him of the manner in which he had dispatched his letters to the post-office, and enjoyed not a little his visitor's astonishment at the revelation. The consequence was that Brent deprived him of his pen in the vain hope of putting an end to his letter- writing.

After lying in the jail four months, his imprisonment came to an end. It had been determined to sell him, and the occurrence of a fair in Richmond presented a favorable opportunity.

-- Excerpts from Charles Emery Stevens’, Anthony Burns: A History (electronic edition, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; originally published 1856), PP. 187-94.