Domestic slave trading in St. Croix, 1764–1848

Abstract

This article deals with domestic slave trading in the Danish (-Norwegian) West Indian colony of St. Croix, focusing on enslaved labourers sold as chattel. It examines the volume and price developments, building upon data on thousands of sales. Crucian slaveholders were willing participants in the domestic slave market, especially during the market’s peak period, c. 1767–1823. Some of them did make a profit from speculation, although evidence of large-scale, professional entrepreneurs is absent. The closing of the transatlantic slave trade did not lead to rising slave prices in the short term, but in the long run it was an important factor in the decline of the market. Finally, the article discusses the impact of the market on enslaved Crucians and their masters, as well as their respective strategies for dealing with it.

Keywords:

• slavery
• internal slave trade
• economic history
• slave agency

Acknowledgements

The article is based upon my MA thesis Intern slavehandel på St. Croix 1750-1848 (The Saxo Institute, Department of History, University of Copenhagen, 2010), supervised by Dr. Gunvor Simonsen. The thesis is available online: http://dwis.dk/images/Dokumenter/Specialer/Vestindien/Bendtsen.Intern_slavehandel_p_St_Croix_1750_1848.Kbh_2010.pdf. The underlying data was supplied by George Tyson, director of the St. Croix African Roots Project, who also encouraged the study. The article also benefited from very useful referee comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The most notable exception is the research into the legal framework of Danish chattel slavery and domestic slave trading conducted by Poul Erik Olsen of the Danish National Archives. Olsen has also provided a workable definition of domestic slave trading in the Danish West Indies, namely ‘the trade within the boundaries of an island’. Olsen, ‘Fra ejendomsret til menneskeret’, 35.

2 B. W. Higman touches upon intra-colonial domestic slave trading in his studies on the slave populations of the British Caribbean after 1807. Higman, Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica; Higman, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean. Elsewhere, apparently, the concept of domestic slave trading in the historiography of the British Caribbean has primarily been understood as inter-colonial slave trading, e.g. the contributions of Seymour Drescher and Hilary McD. Beckles in The Chattel Principle, ed. Walter Johnson, 234–55 and 256–74, respectively.

3 Among many noteworthy contributions to the proliferate US historiography on domestic slave trading, the following are essential: Johnson, Soul by Soul; Deyle, Carry Me Back; Tadman, Speculators and Slaves. Apart from the United States, the internal slave trade of Brazil has also received some attention: Conrad, Destruction of Brazilian Slavery; Graham, ‘Another Middle Passage?’.

4 I am very grateful to George F. Tyson, director of St. Croix African Roots Project (http://stx.visharoots.org), for generously giving me access to the data necessary for the study. The body of data, which does not include sales of entire plantations, consists of entries from the following records at Rigsarkivet (Danish National Archive): DNA, SC, 684:38.37.1–2; 684:38.37.6–50; 684:38.26.2–23; 684:38.26.25–30; 684:38.26.39–42; DNA, SF, 685:39.12.1–6.

5 According to George Tyson, director of St. Croix African Roots Project (see Nnote 4).

6 It may be argued, with good reason, that the definition of a domestic sale given here is too rigid and that every transfer of ownership following sales of entire plantations should count as a sale, whether or not relocation is the result.

7 Olsen, ‘Danske Lov’, 289–321; Olsen, ‘Fra ejendomsret til menneskeret’, 25–52.

8 In 1804 approximately 4.5% of the plantation slaves were personal slaves; Johansen, ‘Slave Demography’, 227.

9 The act was, in particular, aimed at preventing planters of British nationality from relocating to the islands ceded from France by the Treaty of Paris (1763). While export was banned, transit trading was still permitted. Olsen, Toldvæsenet, 230–9; Gøbel, Det danske slavehandelsforbud, 88–9, 133.

10 DNA, SC, 684:38.37.6–50, auctions 1764–1856. DNA, SC, 684:38.26.2–23, mortgages 1749–1800; 684:38.26.25–30, mortgages 1801–12; 684:38.26.39–42, mortgages 1833–44.

11 That is, linear interpolation between the annual average of private sales in 1808–1812, on the one hand, and the annual average of private sales in 1833–1837 on the other.

12 The basis for this estimate is a comparison of auctions in Christiansted and Frederiksted in the period 1760–1800 in which the Frederiksted auction books have been preserved. In this interval, 1,327 enslaved were auctioned in Frederiksted, compared to 4,552 in Christiansted, indicating that the Frederiksted market amounted to 25–30% of the Christiansted market.

13 Based on demographic data from Hall, Slave Society, 88–9, and, for the years 1814 and 1824, on tax records from St. Croix: DNA, AA/WIA, 571:86.41–43; 571:86.51.

14 Based on demographic data from Green-Pedersen, ‘Slave Demography’, 247–8; Johansen, ‘Slave Demography’, 1–20.

15 Tadman, Speculators and Slaves, 112.

16 DNA, GG, 677:2.1.1, proclamations, 23 December 1772.

17 Johansen, ‘Slave Demography’, 6; Hall, Slave Society, 125.

18 In St. Croix, the Danish West Indian currency unit Rigsdaler Vestindisk Curant was used interchangeably with the term Pieces of Eight.

19 Tadman, Speculators and Slaves, 117, 129.

20 Gøbel, Det danske slavehandelsforbud, 71–3.

21 Vibæk, Dansk Vestindien 1755–1848, 312–29.

22 Conrad, Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 49; Mattoso, Klein, and Engerman, ‘Research Note’, 61–2; Wahl, ‘Prices of Slaves’, 743.

23 However, according to Higman, Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 202, ‘the working of the Jamaica slave market requires much closer analysis before definite answers can be obtained’.

24 The Christiansted auction books in 1764–1848 have been chosen as the sole source of data on prices, as they contain more consistent price data than the registers of mortgages and, furthermore, they cover the first half of the 19th century, which the Frederiksted auction books do not. The analysis includes only enslaved adults sold individually (N = 5,391) and only sales in the currency of Rigsdaler Vestindisk Curant (see Note 18), whether this currency is stated explicitly in the entries or may be inferred.

25 Olsen, Toldvæsenet, 115.

26 Gøbel, Det danske slavehandelsforbud, 71–3.

27 Gøbel, Det danske slavehandelsforbud, 115–20.

28 Based upon 5,156 amply dated auction sales between 1764 and 1848: DNA, SC, 684:38.37.6–50, auctions, 1764–1856.

29 Kotlikoff, ‘The Structure of Slave Prices’, 503; Johnson, Soul by Soul, 49.

30 DNA, SC, 684:38.26.30, mortgages 1809–12, p. 333, 425.

31 All sellers found in the auction books and registers of mortgages in the period, deceased persons excluded, were identified and ordered into matrices (with names on the one axis and the years in which these persons traded plotted on the other axis). This analysis was inspired by Galenson, Traders, Planters, and Slaves.

32 Russell, ‘South Carolina’s Largest Slave Auctioneering Firm’, 1241.

33 Knudsen, Lovkyndighed og vederhæftighed, 215.

34 West, Hans West’s Accounts, 117.

35 For example, St. Croix Gazette (20 February 1810): ‘For Sale for want of Employment: A stout healthy Negro Man about 22 years of age, a good Cooper, Enquire of the Printer’.

36 Deyle, ‘“By farr the most profitable trade”’, 116.

37 For example, St. Croix Gazette (13 April 1810): ‘WANTED TO PURCHASE, A Young stout Negro Fellow, who can be recommended for not having bad Qualities, like the generality of Black Men about Town. WANTED, To hire one or two such Fellows by the Month. DRAFT CATTLE! Some well Seasoned Draft Cattle for Sale, Rum at 5 reals will be taken in payment. Enquire of the Printer’.

38 Deyle, Carry Me Back, 168.

39 Svend Holsoe, ‘Vogelsang’ (http://vifamilies.org/images/Vogelsang.doc), accessed 30 June 2015.

40 According to Hans West (1758–1811), school master in Christiansted, ‘keeping a couple of Negroes’ was necessary for a decent life, even for an unmarried civil servant. West, Hans West’s Accounts, 120.

41 DNA, SC, 684:38.26.21, mortgages 1793–97, p. 279.

42 DNA, SC, 684:38.37.28, auctions 1801–1802, 8 September 1801.

43 Gøbel, Det danske slavehandelsforbud, 20, 88, 107, 114–15.

44 Brady, ‘Observations’, 176–7. Also the North American abolitionist Sylvester Hovey, who paid a brief visit to the Danish West Indies in 1835, observed that ‘[t]he nearest relatives may be separated from each other, either by sale or bequest’. Hovey, ‘Letters from St. Croix’, 190.

45 Brady, ‘Observations’, 165.

46 Bancroft, Slave-Trading, 202.

47 In the United States, urban slaves were often able to maintain social ties when traded within town. Johnson, Soul by Soul, 195.

48 Gjellerup probably purchased Sally in order to replace the labour of another woman, Beatrice, whom he manumitted one month later: DNA., SC, 684:38.26.29, mortgages 1807–09, p. 810, 818, 847, 866.

49 Deyle, Carry Me Back, 233.

50 St. Croix Gazette, 23 February 1810 and 13 March 1810; DNA, CB, 684:38.26.30, mortgages 1809–12, p. 41, 84.

51 DNA, SC, 684:38.6.27, sentences 1815–17, case no. 1816–371. I am very thankful to Dr. Gunvor Simonsen at the Saxo Institute of the University of Copenhagen for sharing this case with me.

52 According to unpublished research by George Tyson, the number of labourers on Mount Welcome ‘had been reduced by 50% from 162 to 82, primarily through a continuous process of sales and also, in 1811, by the flight of 27 people to Puerto Rico in response to this progressive disintegration of an entire slave community’.

53 ‘Frederik og Phoebe var herved fortalere, og sagde at ingen af slaverne ville sælges fra eller ude ved plantagen; at de i den anledning aldrig havde forpligtet sig og at de især for deres eget vedkommende ikke ville sælges’. DNA, SC, 684:38.6.27, sentences 1815–17, case no. 1816–371.

54 ‘Da så stor en besætning af slaver som den Mount Welcome nu har … ikke behøves, intenderede Benners at bortsælge en del deraf, hvilken hans hensigt uagtet han kun udlod sig til sine venner og dr. Stevens, som ville købe de slaver han ville sælge, dog kom til slavernes kundskab’. DNA, SC, 684:38.6.27, sentences 1815–17, case no. 1816–371.

55 Johnson, Soul by Soul, 20.

56 Johnson, Soul by Soul, 30.

57 Holten, Af En Gammel Hofmands Mindeblade, 51–2.

58 ‘Heller ikke er Salget af Huusnegre saa forfærdeligt som det udraabes for, da disse alminligviis ikke falbydes ved offentlig Auction uden i Tilfælde at Eierens Bo kommer under Skifterettens Behandling. Den sædvanlige Maade, naar man vil skille sig ved en Huusneger, er, at man giver denne en Seddel, hvorpaa der staaer, at han skal sælges, samt den Priis, der fordres. Han søger sig saaledes selv en anden Herre, og er han ellers bekjendt for at være et skikkeligt Menneske, kan han ogsaa vente at finde et godt Herskab.’ Holten, Af En Gammel Hofmands Mindeblade, 51–2.

59 St. Croix Gazette, 1 May 1810.

60 Brady, ‘Observations’, 176–7.

61 Brady, ‘Observations’, 176–7.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lasse Bendtsen

Lasse Bendtsen (b. 1979) is a curator at the department of Danish Middle Ages and Renaissance at the National Museum of Denmark, working primarily as a member of the editorial staff publishing the monumental inventory Danmarks Kirker (Denmark’s Churches). He holds an MA in History from the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen.