Slavery's Converging Ground

Charleston's Slave Trade as the Black Heart of the Lowcountry

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3514484
AutoresGregory E O’malley (autor correspondente), Gregory E O'Malley, Gregory E O'Malley Gregory E O'Malley
Ano2017
Volume74
Fascículo2
Páginas271
Data de publicação2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698
EditoraProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5309/willmaryquar.74.2.0271
OpenAlexW2608423033
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas25

The importance of slavery to colonial South Carolina's economy and society is well-known, but the central place of the slave trade in colonial Charleston's economy and society is less well understood. Nearly half of the enslaved African people forcibly settled in what became the United States landed in Charleston, and the significance of the town's role as a slave trade hub extends well beyond the numbers. If enslaved people were the muscle building the region's economy, the slave trade was the system's lifeblood, and the coursing of it through Charleston mattered deeply. There are four primary reasons to see the town's commerce in human beings as central to life in the Lowcountry, beyond the obvious fact that enslaved captives passed through Charleston on their way to bondage on plantations: slave sales functioned as trade fairs that drew people from a vast hinterland to the city, catalyzing economic life; merchants throughout the British Empire exploited Charleston's slave trade to facilitate other commerce; captives experienced moving through Charleston as a brutal induction or initiation into American slavery; and, finally, Charleston held ongoing importance for the enslaved of the region as a remembered site from their arrival

Archaeology · Atlantic slave trade · Colonialism · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Political science · South carolina · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Cuban History and Society · History · Public Administration · Race, History, and American Society