The Atlantic
The Men Who Turned Slavery Into Big Business
The domestic slave trade was no sideshow in our history, and slave traders were not bit players on the stage.
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Adam Maida / The Atlantic
Isaac Franklin spent part of Christmas Day 1833 assessing his company’s operations and making plans for the future. Writing from New Orleans to one of his business partners in Virginia, Franklin took a few moments out of his holiday to report that he had rented a new showroom in the city from which he would soon start making sales, and that sales up the Mississippi River at the company’s branch in Natchez, Mississippi, were going swimmingly.