Isaac Franklin
Isaac Franklin was an American slave trader and plantation owner. Born to wealthy planters in what would become Sumner County, Tennessee, he assisted his brothers in trading slaves and agricultural surplus along the Mississippi River in his youth, before briefly serving in the Tennessee militia during the War of 1812. He returned to slave trading soon after the war, buying enslaved people in Virginia and Maryland, before marching them in coffles to sale at Natchez, Mississippi. He introduced John Armfield to the slave trade, and with him founded the Franklin & Armfield partnership in 1828, which would go on to become one of the largest slave trading firms in the United States. With a base of operations in Alexandria, D.C., the company shipped massive numbers of the enslaved by land and sea to markets at Natchez and New Orleans.
During his time with the partnership, Franklin mainly managed slave sales in the Lower Mississippi. Innovations such as coastwise shipping and easy extensions of long credit to slaveholders brought him great wealth, with the partnership likely becoming the largest slave trading firm during its peak of operations. Many rival slave traders were either pushed out of the market or hired as purchasing partners for the company, further expanding its corporate reach. Although temporarily able to circumvent the imposition of slave trade restrictions in Louisiana, he began to mainly focus on sales at his Natchez property, working alongside his nephew James Franklin Purvis. Public outrage forced him out of Natchez in 1833, after he was discovered to have buried the bodies of slaves who had died of cholera in shallow ditches and gullies. He relocated operations to the Forks of the Road market outside city limits, where he continued to work until his retirement from slave trading in 1835. Amassing a great fortune from his slave trading, he was able to purchase a large property in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, in addition to his main Fairvue Plantation in Tennessee. He married Adelicia Hayes in 1839, and with her had four children. At the time of his death from a stomach illness in April 1846, he kept 646 men, women, and children in slavery.
Early life and family
Isaac Franklin was born on May 26, 1789, to frontier settlers Mary and James Franklin Sr. at Station Camp Creek in Sumner County, then part of western North Carolina. James Franklin Sr. was likely born in Maryland to a Huguenot refugee. He settled in the Cumberland basin prior to the American Revolution and entered work as a longhunter. He served in territorial defense during Lord Dunmore's War and the American Revolutionary War under James Robertson, and assisted in the construction of frontier forts. He married Mary Lauderdale, the daughter of his employer, when she was 13. The two would go on to have nine children. Following a land grant for his Revolutionary War service by the North Carolina Assembly, James Franklin amassed hundreds of acres of property along the north shore of the Cumberland River, alongside a significant number of slaves. By the end of the 1810s, he owned 26 enslaved people. The Cumberland was an early center of the regional slave trade during the first decade of the 1800s, with slaves commonly leased, used to pay debts, purchase property, given as prizes for lotteries, or as gifts for children. Franklin's property, including his slaves, was portioned among his children following his death in 1828.As a child, Isaac Franklin attended a rural school while working on his father's farm, where he received what an obituary described as the "mere rudiments of education". With the outbreak of the War of 1812, he joined an outfit of the Tennessee militia in the fall of 1813, which eventually became part of the 2nd Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen under Colonel Newton Cannon and Brigadier General John Coffee in the Creek War. Franklin was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and served in various battles against the Creeks, including at the Battle of Tallushatchee and under Andrew Jackson's command at Talladega. He left the army in 1814, and briefly entered a protracted business dispute with Gabriel Tichenor, the cashier of the Mississippi Territory's sole bank. In 1815, he settled in a 132-acre plot five miles west of Gallatin, Tennessee, purchased from his father.
Early career
In 1807, the eighteen-year-old Franklin was hired by his older brothers, James and John Franklin, to sail by flatboat from Gallatin to market at New Orleans via the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. Although they ferried agricultural surplus, they primarily sold, purchased, and bartered enslaved peoples along the journey. The two older brothers frequently traveled to Maryland to purchase slaves, before returning to Tennessee and sailing downriver to sell them in the Mississippi Territory. After one such journey in early 1809, James Franklin Jr. had acquired bills of exchange worth several thousand dollars as payment for slaves, which required cashing at the Brown & Ives firm in Providence, Rhode Island. John and Isaac were sent east to acquire slaves and cash the bills. The two departed in August or September 1809, crossing the Great Appalachian Valley into southwestern Virginia, before continuing to Maryland. John stayed in Maryland, purchasing slaves in Baltimore or Alexandria, while Isaac proceeded by ship to Providence. He was unable to cash the bills of exchange, as Brown & Ives claimed that the account holders lacked the funds to pay the bills. Returning to Maryland, the two brought a small coffle of the enslaved through the six-hundred-mile journey to Tennessee. James and Isaac proceeded to sell the slaves in Natchez and New Orleans, but were unsuccessful in receiving payment for the outstanding bills of exchange, eventually selling them at a discount in Nashville.Demand for slaves in the Old Southwest dramatically increased after the War of 1812, following the migration of large numbers of white settlers in the region, as well as a process of indigenous land seizure culminating in the Indian removal. By 1819, Franklin fully committed to the interstate slave trade. His older brothers had largely retired from slave trading, settling on their plantations after marriage. Isaac Franklin continued slave trading, largely due to personal enjoyment and talent for the industry. Franklin's earliest recorded bill of sale was in July 1819. During the early portion of his career, he likely purchased slaves in Tennessee, who were then transported by river to Natchez. Slaves were generally unconstrained on-deck, but were chained together in pairs when the boat docked for provisions.
By 1821, he mainly purchased from the mid-Atlantic, including Maryland and Virginia in particular. In May 1821, he placed advertisements in the National Intelligencer inquiring to purchase "18 or 20 likely young negro boys and girls" while staying at Tennison's Hotel in Washington. Franklin traveled frequently across large portions of Virginia and Maryland, making slave purchases at various hotels, taverns, and courthouses. He paid to stow the enslaved at local jails, occasionally leading to jailbreaks and manhunts for the fugitive slaves. James Franklin Jr. rented a two-acre property in Alexandria, likely to serve as a base of operations and "holding pen" for his brother's trade in exchange for payment. In 1819, Franklin was sued by a planter in Mississippi for selling him six "lame, blind, consumptive, cancerous, and otherwise diseased" slaves.
Due to its access to the Mississippi and the Natchez Trace, Natchez emerged as one of the most important slave-trading hubs in the United States, alongside the major city of New Orleans further downriver. In the spring of 1821, Franklin and his younger brother William acquired a house several blocks outside of the Natchez city limits, likely purchased through the sale of three slaves to the former property owners. Unlike the "makeshift pens" used by itinerant slave traders in Natchez, the Franklin brothers' facility was a sizeable complex able to confine many enslaved people at once. The shop was possibly the first permanent slave business in Natchez. After several years of work, William retired, but John's eldest son, Smith Franklin, began work with Isaac in his stead. They continued operations in Natchez, acquiring additional properties adjacent to their shop. He hired agents in Virginia and Maryland to purchase slaves for his sales, occasionally traveling to the region to supervise purchases. The enslaved were transported overland to Natchez in coffles of several dozen people.
Franklin & Armfield
In 1824, Franklin met John Armfield, a former shopkeeper likely working as a stagecoach driver in Virginia. Although older narratives claim Armfield was immediately hired as a business assistant in Tennessee, little evidence points to a formal business relationship for several years. However, Armfield, advised by Franklin, entered the slave trading industry in Guilford County, North Carolina.Early operations
Franklin and Armfield, while not having previously worked together, became familiar with each other through trading in Natchez and Alexandria. On February 28, 1828, the Franklin & Armfield partnership was officially formed, with the agreement renewed every five years, longer than many slave trading partnerships. Although the original "articles of co-partnership" have been lost, both men likely contributed upwards of $10,000 to the partnership. The agreed business structure placed Franklin in command of sales in Natchez, with Armfield stationed more or less permanently at Alexandria in order to make purchases. Smith Franklin left Isaac's employment, although it is unknown if this was related to the formation of the partnership. Franklin & Armfield built a base of operations in Alexandria, D.C., where Franklin's elder brothers had previously worked as slave traders. The location was also chosen to avoid direct competition with rival slave trader Austin Woolfolk in Baltimore. They began advertising to attract customers, running an advertisement in the Alexandria Gazette in May 1828, preceding others in the Alexandria Phenix Gazette and Washington United States' Telegraph. Such promotional material boasted of high prices paid and large volumes of slave purchases. In 1828, the firm leased a large headquarters in the city, previously owned by Brigadier General Robert Young. The townhouse, three-stories high and attached to a large holding area, was described by an Alexandria tax inspector as "Franklin's black hole". In addition to its purpose as a holding pen, the building served as an office for the firm and a private residence for Armfield.File:Franklin and Armfield slave prison Alexandria Virginia 1836.png|thumb|Franklin & Armfield headquarters, Alexandria. from a 1836 American Anti-Slavery Society broadsideFranklin & Armfield quickly achieved significant commercial success, and began to absorb or displace various local slave traders. The company employed large numbers of agents, smaller traders, clerks, and assistants in order to facilitate the large volume of enslaved people purchased and transported. Franklin employed two of his nephews, James Franklin Purvis and James Rawling Franklin, to work as purchasing agents for the company in northwestern Virginia and Maryland. James Rawling Franklin was later sent to conduct sales in the lower Mississippi. A number of regionally prominent traders in Virginia and Maryland were recruited as purchasing agents.While Armfield and various contracted agents purchased slaves in Virginia, Franklin primarily managed the company's finances and shipments from his bases of operations in Natchez and New Orleans. In April 1829, following a local ban on slave trading in New Orleans, he leased a house and three vacant lots in the Faubourg Marigny, immediately outside of the city limits. The building served both as a residence and office for Franklin, with the vacant lots reserved as potential holding pens for the enslaved. The Louisiana State Legislature began to institute policies regulating certain aspects of the slave trade, including banning the sale of unaccompanied young children. Although Franklin largely ceased purchases of young children, he was able to buck the policy by lying about the children's age or claiming that they were orphans. Others were simply sold at Natchez or gifted to local politicians in order to curry favor, due to otherwise slim profits on children.
From his Faubourg Marigny office, Franklin sold large numbers of slaves, steadily shipped to the facility by Armfield and the firm's agents. Other slaves were shipped by steamboat to the facility in Natchez. From April to May 1829 in New Orleans alone, he sold 80 enslaved people, with another 75 sold in November and December of that year. A similar volume of sales was likely made at Natchez. The company's fortunes were reported by the abolitionist newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation. In late 1829, Franklin encountered Jourdan Saunders, a relative newcomer to the slave trade based in Warrenton, Virginia. Franklin purchased seven slaves from Saunders, allowed him to live at his office, and hired him as a purchasing agent, expanding the company's geographical reach into northern Virginia and greatly profiting both parties.