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William H. Williams operated a slave pen in Washington, DC, known as the Yellow House, and actively trafficked in enslaved men, women, and children for more than twenty years. His slave trading activities took an extraordinary turn in 1840 when he purchased twenty-seven enslaved convicts from the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond with the understanding that he could carry them outside of the United States for sale. When Williams conveyed his captives illegally into New Orleans, allegedly while en route to the foreign country of Texas, he prompted a series of courtroom dramas that would last for almost three decades. Based on court records, newspapers, governors' files, slave manifests, slave narratives, travelers' accounts, and penitentiary data, Williams' Gang examines slave criminality, the coastwise domestic slave trade, and southern jurisprudence as it supplies a compelling portrait of the economy, society, and politics of the Old South.

Summary

Already by the 1820s, the national capital of Washington, D.C. had emerged as a significant depot in the increasingly professionalized domestic slave trade. The introduction sketches the history of slave dealing in the capital, William H. Williams’ emergence on to the slave-trading scene there, and the broad contours of how the slave trade functioned, often depositing its victims for sale in New Orleans, Louisiana. It argues that the story of William H. Williams and his one shipment of convict slaves purchased in 1840 provides a snapshot of the antebellum era socially, economically, politically, and legally.

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Williams' Gang

Introduction - The Slave Depot of Washington, D.C.

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Williams' Gang

Introduction - The Slave Depot of Washington, D.C.

Summary