The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America

by Joshua D. Rothman

In The Ledger and the Chain, acclaimed historian Joshua D. Rothman recounts the shocking story of the domestic slave trade by tracing the lives and careers of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, who built the largest and most powerful slave-trading operation in American history. Far from social outcasts, they were rich and widely respected businessmen, and their company sat at the center of capital flows connecting southern fields to northeastern banks. Bringing together entrepreneurial ambition and remorseless violence toward enslaved people, domestic slave traders produced an atrocity that forever transformed the nation.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, American History, Politics, Audiobook, African American

512 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2021

About the author

Joshua D. Rothman is Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Reviews

[Kristi Lamont · Rating 5 out of 5]

PREFACE
Before I get into the details of _why_ I gave this book 5 stars, permit me to say at the outset that it gets those 5 stars for what it is/what it does/how it is written, not because I had some grand emotional experience with it (as I do with most books which I rate 5 stars).

BOOK REPORT PROPER
About once every five or 10 years I read what I consider to be a history textbook, vs a biography, memoir, and/or historical fiction. Examples over the years include Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer, Born Fighting by James Webb, and Carry Me Home by Diane McWhorter. The Ledger and the Chain by Joshua Rothman falls into this category.

These are not history textbooks like you remember from K-12, in which each chapter covers some specific era or event. No, they are the assigned reading you got/should've gotten/might get in a good college class.

Interestingly, I probably would not have read Rothman's book were he not a friend and neighbor. That said, out of all the books listed above, his comes in No. 2 in regard to filling my knowledge gaps about certain topics (Albion's Seed being No. 1).

I was a double-major in journalism and political science in college, with a minor in history. In PSC I "specialized"--as much as one can do in undergrad--in Southern Politics, Latin American Politics, and War. (My career goals at the time were to be either a war correspondent for the Associated Press, or their Southern politics reporter. So much for five-year plans.)

Anyway, I read a lot, and I do mean A Lot, of books on Southern history and politics in pursuit of my bachelor's degrees. So when I started reading this book, I was like, umm, whaa? Why did I not learn this in university?

I had the opportunity to hear Josh speak about his book, and he mentioned that one key work on the domestic slave trade (Speculators and Slaves by Michael Tadman) did not come out until 1989. Yours truly graduated in 1988. So, there's that answered. Side note: If you get the chance to hear Josh as Professor Rothman, take it; he is an excellent teacher.

He is also an excellent researcher, historian, and business reporter all rolled into one, as this book evinces.

Now, don't get me wrong. Stretches of it are as boring as The Begats, and I could not read it all at one sitting. The photos and illustrations would have more impact were they larger in size. I picked nits like wondering why he didn't capitalize South. And at one point I found myself mumble-grumbling, "Why don't you just go ahead and footnote/cite every sentence, dude?"

Ah, but The Ledger and the Chain is not of the Southern Gothic genre, nor is it a weirdly comforting British police procedural to be whipped through of an afternoon. Nope, it's a serious work on a very serious topic, and I learned a great deal from it. Going into it I had only an inkling that some domestic trading of kidnapped and enslaved people went on in the United States before the country's Civil War. I had no idea the sheer volume of people whose lives were impacted by it, nor did I have a clear understanding of exactly how big the business was. (And yes I mean volume and not number; this was, horrifically, a commodities trade.)

Here, let me let Dr. Rothman say it much better than I can: "....men profited by trafficking the enslaved to promote private gain and national growth, diffused money and credit from that traffic throughout the country so that it could be leveraged for the benefit of nearly everyone but the enslaved themselves, and accustomed Americans to think of Black people as suitable for shackles and showrooms and cells."

One thing I keep coming back to, having finished the book, is the author's use of the phrase "sanctity of debt." Really and truly, when it gets down to it, the United States of America as it was built, and as it seems to be today, values money more than it values human life, Black life, in particular.

Is this book for everyone? No, of course not. No book is. But if you are interested in the topic, it's an absolute must-read.

PS
If you do read this book, and you're not normally a reader of Acknowledgements, make an exception this time, if only for the part that runs from the middle of p372 over to p373. As a matter of fact, maybe even start with that; it will give you a very good sense of our author as a person and of his motivation to write The Ledger and the Chain.

[Sasha (bahareads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joshua Rothman's The Ledger and The Chain tries to show how the American slave trade shaped America. The book's narrative is told through the most prominent slave traders in the American slave trade industry, Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard. In the acknowledgements, Rothman states he wants to show his children that the future must tell the truth about the past. A well-researched work Rothman should appeal to a wide audience. Rothman sets to break down the narrative that the atrocity of the American domestic slave trade was atypical of American slavery.

Rothman does not shirk from his opinions throughout this book on the slave traders themselves. Periodically throughout the book, he remarks on how the slave traders were evil people. The reminder jolts the reader to remember that these were real people who actually did the terrible things Rothman writes about. The ideal to disassociate people from their work or misrepresent their actions is what Rothman crushes with these continued statements. Showing how ruthless Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard were in their dealings with enslaved people exemplifies how terrible life was for the enslaved. The letters between these three show the chilling actions they dealt with enslaved people under them. The casual brutality they leveled on their slaves will strike the reader as genuinely evil. Men without a conscience are the only words to describe these three traders adequately

Rothman says that the enthusiasm and collaborative pleasure James Franklin, Isaac Franklin, Rice Ballard, and John Armfield derived from hurting, degrading and terrorizing enslaved people made them successful. The age-old adage 'love the work you do' appears to ring true in this case. Rothman shows how the sex slave trade became very profitable and pleasurable for the traders. Franklin, Armfield, and Ballard would sample their beautiful 'goods' before selling them off to buyers.

Rothman traces the lives of these three traders, ending the book with Ballard's death. Reading the rise of each trader shows the reader how enticing the slave trade was for making money. The idea of the industry generating so much money shows what a powerful motivator money is to humans. The modern-day equivalent sums of Franklin, Armfield, and Ballard's estates will leave the reader reeling. The enticement of possible wealth would have attracted many to the slave trade as Rothman shows throughout the book.

Isaac Franklin's death helped to project the American trope of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Franklin was praised for being "a self-made man." The death of Rice Ballard and John Armfield shows the public has a short memory for evil and money will always garner praise. The praising tributes for Armfield and Franklin were incredibly ignorant of the dark side of their work. John Armfield's obituary writer claimed that enslaved black people looked to Armfield as their "fastest friend." The obituaries show how sanitizing these men's memories were made at this time.

Rothman succeeds in showing the traders as being multifaceted people. John Armfield's mourning of Isaac Franklin's death shows deeply connected these men were with each other. The level of intimacy that they had with each other is shocking. In an emotional preview about Franklin's death, Armfield wrote to Ballard, "You may imagin yet I cannot describe my present feelings." These men being each other's only true friends show how lonely the trader life could be.

Rothman does a great job in The Ledger and the Chain. He lays out the thesis of how domestic slave traders built America decently; there was less analysis and more narrative throughout this work. I lay this on the fact The Ledger and the Chain. was printed by a non-academic press. The narrative thread of the lives of each of these men and how they impacted America were well laid out. The wide array of sources Rothman uses, such as newspapers, letters, wills, and other books on the slave trade, was interesting. The fascinating part of Rothman's research for me was how he found Franklin descendants. Discovering how they helped contribute to the book was the best part for me.

[Tahera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received and read an Arc of this book two years ago and after all that time I have decided that instead of attempting to write a review, I will just share these two quotes/passages from the book that I noted down because, to me, it is the gist of what the book is about.

"We do not really understand American history if we do not understand the slave trade, and we do not really understand the slave trade if we do not understand those who made it work."

"Yet most of what we think we know relies on generations of accumulated stereotypes about slave traders as outliers and lowlife social outcasts. We lean on fictions and convenient clichés that misrepresent the past and perpetuate the notion that the atrocity of the domestic slave trade was somehow atypical of American slavery and marginal to the broader development of the United States. In truth, while some considered the trade distasteful, it was conducted neither in secret nor with much shame. Slave traders worked in open collusion with legions of slaveholders, bankers, merchants, lawyers, clerks, judges, sheriffs, and politicians, who all recognized their indispensability, and as in most occupations, their standing, both in society and the business world, depended on perceptions of their integrity and reliability. Pervasive in urban and rural areas alike, the slave trade was just another part of the energetic “go-ahead” spirit suffusing American commercial life before the Civil War."


My thanks to NetGalley, the publishers Perseus Books/Basic Books and the author Joshua D. Rotham for the e-Arc of the book. Instead of a review, I will just say that this book should be read.

[The Sassy Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have been slowly reading this one. It's a tough book to read, but an important one for sure. Growing up in Canada we learned little "American history" Of course, you would have to be living under a rock not to know about slavery since it spans the world. This book, however, is about three men who would build the largest slave industry in America. Sometimes book like this can be "dry" but I think the author did a good job of presenting us a (obviously) well researched biography and business history involving the three men.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

[Jean-Luc · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ledger and the chain is an exhaustive look at how the slaves brought to the United States from overseas during the 19th century were integrated into the American economic system, following the lives of 3 slave traders before the Civil War.
Joshua Rothman brilliantly decorticates for the reader the complexities of the business mechanism behind the vast domestic network that allowed some individuals to become immensely wealthy while trading human beings as if they were livestock, how important their business activities were to the general economy of the country and how widely accepted and even respected they were within their respective community and in the country at large. An important addition to the studies on slavery and its economic aspects in America. A haunting but compelling book to read.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Basic Books for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful book prior to its release date

[Craig Werner]

While it's not quite the case that the domestic slave trade has been ignored by American historians, this is the best book I've read that places it at the center of the story. Densely detailed, the study focuses on the connection between a major slave trading firm and the formation of American capitalism. The character sketches are convincing and complex. Depressing but that's built into the story.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a challenging book—I didn’t know it would be about local history for me—East Tennessee and it’s cities and institutions and famous sons. The reality and personal nature of the local slave trade was just so stark and real. It got bogged down in some of the accounting detail and relationships, but the explicit description of how the domestic trade worked were vital.

[Brandon Westlake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a valuable contribution to the historiography of slavery. The slave trade is often tangentially referenced in discussions about the institution. If there have been detailed works, it usually focuses about the transatlantic trade (and "middle passage") from Africa to the Americas. Rothman's book fills a gap in our understanding of the horrible treatment of black Americans.

The main takeaway here is that slavery is a business, a capitalist venture built upon exploitation of other humans. Centering the narrative on the business of key traders, Rothman's work is very much in the same vein of recent history on enslavement, such as Edward Baptist. Much like historians have argued that Nazis corrupted and adopted modern technology and social institutions to carry out the Holocaust (train system, scientific management) Rothman implies that same thing happened in America with its subjugation of peoples.

It's a harrowing story, that really brings to life the capacity of man to treat people as no more than a thing, an item. Furthermore, the slave trade was a product of its time. We cannot discuss the first Industrial Revolution and the economic advancement of the US in the early 1800s without mentioning how the slave trade was part of this. It benefited from it, it grow from it. Such a thesis makes us reconsider whether all of these actions were really towards "progress"

[Miriam Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This eye-opening history book describes the domestic slave trade from 1790/1800 through the civil war, concentrating on 1820-1850. The author focuses on the economics of the slave trade first walking men, women, and children from the Atlantic seaboard to New Orleans, then moving them by ship.

It's a difficult book to read on an emotional topic describing how blacks were treated, mistreated, and abused. Setting slave trade into US history and economics shifts the reader's perspective from horrors described to business operations.

Rather than focusing on the stories of the enslaved, the author details the history of the company, Franklin, Armfield, and Ballard, who "built the largest and most powerful slave-trading operation in American history."

You'll weep and cringe at this horrible chapter in American history. It sheds much light on the underpinnings of the Civil War, economics of the South, and the fearless fight of for civil rights and Black Lives Matter. Everyone should read this book.

Thanks to the BookLoft of German Village (Columbus, OH) http://www.bookloft.com for an ARC to read and review.

[zarkmoon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-researched and very readable narrative concerning the three most successful slave traders in the American south in the early 1800s. The author is adept at demonstrating how the traders were perceived by their contemporaries both as accomplished businessmen and opportunistic reprobates, while never wavering from the moral position that they were evil men trading in heartbreak, human suffering, and death.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Leder And The Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America, by Joshua D. Rothman

There are different kinds of historical works. Some historical works are monographs that seek to study in some degree of depth a very focused set of people or a certain event, while other works are more broad and systematic works that are based on a large variety of existing monographs that allow for a synthesis and broader insights. This book has the title of the latter kind of work, but at its heart this book is a somewhat narrowly focused monograph that does not focus on the slave trade as a whole, but specifically on one firm of slave traders formed out of the cooperation between three men and a few of their associates that exploited and pushed new developments in the domestic slave trade to turn declining slave states like Virginia and Maryland into the sources of profitable excess slaves to sell for a profit in the growing slave states of Mississippi and Louisiana, and later Texas. Where the author stays close to the historical record, which is most of the time, the book is effective in its analysis of the way that the domestic slave trade was deeply rooted in the trends of its time and also had some major implications for the future. Where the author tries to argue that sharecropping was a uniquely black phenomenon, the author demonstrates a lack of awareness of the reality of poor whites in the postbellum South, and this lack of knowledge and lack of sympathies with poor Southern whites makes this book less insightful and certainly less enjoyable to read than it could have been had the author had broader and more just sympathies than simply trying to blame whitey for the historical and contemporary difficulties of blacks in America.

This book is a chronological examination of three people, their family backgrounds, and their business and personal behavior extending over a long period from the late 18th century to the period just after the civil war, with some looks that go to the modern period, where one of the slave plantations owned and managed by one of the trio at the center of the book makes a cameo appearance as one of the worst prisons of the state of Louisiana, known by the name of Angola. Beginning with a short introduction, the book covers nearly 375 pages of core material, beginning with the origins of its main characters--one Isaac Franklin, one Rice Ballard, and one John Armfield (1), moving on to the choices that brought them all into the slave trade in different ways (2), as well as their decision to become associates starting in the late 1820s (3). The author then discusses their profitable ventures in dominating the interstate slave trade through a mastery of credit, logistics, and transportation (4), their long and fortunate dissolution as a slave trading firm just before the Panic of 1837 (5), their desire to protect their reputations as they married and stayed active in various sorts of business (6), and their legacies after they started dying from 1845 to 1871 (7). After this there is a chapter that ties up the book with a look at the contemporary relevance of these people, acknowledgments, abbreviations, notes, and an index.

One of the great mysteries of the book is why it chooses to have such a narrow focus as a book while having a title and subtitle that try to promote the book as being a broader and more synthetic account. It is perhaps the case that the domestic slave trade has not been written about to a great enough extent to where a broad synthetic account can be written. The author himself comes close to the truth--though he does not appear to understand the implications of what he says--when he points out that wealthy slave traders like Franklin, Ballard, and Armfield did not suffer socially for their involvement in the slave trade, but that the less-cultured and more pushy underlings who were personally responsible for pushing slaveowners to sell surplus slaves, divide black families for personal profit or debt repayment, or even kidnap slaves and free blacks to sell downriver did receive social opprobrium for their lack of grace and greater merchandising behavior that may have struck more genteel Southern elites as being too Yankee-like. By focusing so much of his discussion on the issue of race, the author fails to understand the issue of class that was also involved in the ambitions of Franklin, Ballard, Armfield, and many others. By and large, though, this book ignores poor whites, focusing on elite Americans, especially Southerners, and those they held as property and exercised mastery over, sometimes in deeply repellant ways. Still, insofar as this book focuses on elites, the way that the book combines a detailed examination of the personal letters as well as the litigation and ledgers of an immensely successful slave trading firm is an example for other monographs, so long as they do not try to mislead the reader into thinking that they are broader than they really are in the way that this one does.

[Matthew Rohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong business history of slave trading in the antebellum South, combining compelling narrative, strong research, and a clear framing to shift common understandings of American slavery into something more modern and embedded within business practices that we're much more accustomed to thinking about in the context of the era of robber barons around the turn of the 20th century. Great pick for non-historians interested in the topic

[Renée L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, well researched history. I love a book that makes me wanna research more.

[Farar Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is essential reading for each of us. After 1808, the domestic slave trade destroyed millions of lives. Three men were at the center of creating the sophisticated machine of this carnage, and understanding how they did it brings in banking and brutality that ran from New England to New Orleans.

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

"For a white man with some pluck and few ethics, there was money to be made dealing in Black people," Rothman writes in his search for what makes a man become a slaver. His answer seems to be that they found it fun. And they had great ambition for money. His three examples have family roots as deep as English immigrants to America go and in telling their stories he tells the early history of a country that condoned slavery, sometimes encouraging it, sometimes requiring it, all while many observers had a distaste for it that was sometimes moral, sometimes merely inconvenient, like having a dead rat near one's door. Just as in modern times, there were economic bubbles and crashes, changes in technology, war interfering with commerce. When Congress outlawed the slave trade in 1808, it outlawed only trade from Africa. This created a great opportunity for interstate sales, and his three slavers jumped in with both feet, all three realizing an enslaved person was their greatest financial asset by far. Like certain businessmen today, they improved their business model over and over until it ran smoothly, striving to make it vertical, and employing many illegal tricks, especially kidnapping free Black people. And like many businessmen today, they complained of the hard work that sapped their strength at the end, all while ignoring the suffering they caused others. All three married late in life after having raped countless enslaved women, and keeping enslaved mistresses (all of whom were abandoned along with their children). All three wives landed on their feet after the Civil War - one conning the government for war reparations - why she'd have made her husband proud with her cleverness. Many of the relics of their business endeavors survive: University of the South, Belmont Mansion in Nashville, Fairvue or Fairview Mansion in Gallatin, the Duke Street house in Alexandria, and Angola prison on the site of Angola plantation.

Rothman does his best to let the enslaved speak, providing their names where possible, and telling those of their stories that intersect with the slavers', sometimes through third-party eyes. He does not write with academic detachment. This saves the book from utter despair. The author's own disgust frequently peeks out. Also there are so many references to escapes and uprisings (and not only famous ones) no one can come away believing the enslaved ever went like lambs to the slaughter. But these things are covered in other books. This book has a useful focus on economics, the early banking system, money transactions, trade, and transportation in the early years of the United States. And it does not whitewash these slavers' enthusiasm for the work they did and the fantastic amounts of money they made doing it.

[Silena · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a heart-breaking account of how three men made their fortunes building an empire buying slaves in the North and selling them to plantations in the South. They destroyed families, raped women, let disease kill indiscriminately, and terrorized the slaves that they sold.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joshua D. Rothman both shares a publisher with Edward Baptist as well as a deep-seeded interest in the intersection of slavery and American capitalism, and The Ledger and the Chain remains an excellent companion piece to The Half Has Never Been Told, let alone being exemplary in its own right.

What Rothman chronicles here is what many have considered a lost, or underrepresented, aspect of American history: the thriving of the domestic slave trade in the advent of the 1808 transatlantic slave ban. Rothman extrapolates from diligently-researched data regarding the three most successful domestic slave traders and their partnership, and fashions a narrative out of paying attention to the archives and aggressively following the money.

The book is not for the faint of heart. These men impregnated Black slave women and sold their biological children off without remorse. In the event slaves were being transported and fallen ill due to the cholera wrought from being starved and economically down-trodden, or just drop dead from the trials of the trip itself, traders would bury the dead in graves without announcement or ceremony, lazily "covering up" the bodies with offensively shallow graves.

Several motifs come to mind for me in this book: first, the intransigence and the inherited legacy of capital. Private prisons used by slave traders remained effective incarcerating capital well into Reconstruction, where in many ways the same affiliates to the slave-dealing legacy, who still owned the detention facilities for their slaves despite slavery being abolished, would repurpose these facilities for the convict-leasing system that reinstilled slavery, as per Blackmon, "by another name." Hard, stubborn capital entraps us in the legacies it was initially created for, in a lot of ways.

The other more or less horrifying issue is the great "and for what?" And for what were these people's entire livelihoods, lives, dreams, hopes, families, and senses of self thrown into the labor machine? A pathetic whimper of a legacy, it turns out. The men in this book leave little worth saving in their demise, and aren't particularly mourned by their family or their community. Familial squabbles about the placement of the money remain, in sad fashion unworthy of the heinous amounts of cruelty and wage theft wrought for it.

Of course, The Ledger and the Chain is so much more than this: a cleverly, brilliantly told story outlined and detailed by the raw receipts of financial dealings, credits, deeds of purchase, and archival records. Rothman's tone is aptly rife with pathos and/or contempt in the appropriate moments, and his mordant and wry sense of humor is a reliable welcome to some very illuminating subject matter that, I would imagine, would be difficult for Americans uninitiated into true history (shorn of propaganda, jingoism, and more). It will remain with you as a book by which one can clearly peer behind the curtain to see their country for what it is. A definite recommend and so rewarding for folks already interested in the topic.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

OMG...this book is quite a slog. I admit I fell into the fallacy of sunk costs and probably should have stopped reading.

That said, the book is incredibly detailed, and for readers with only a nebulous understanding of the American slave trade, it could serve as the only book required to fully understand the topic. Even though the book focuses on the careers of three traders, there is a sense of completeness.

A weird thing. I got the sense that the author enjoyed naming the names of distant kin, relations, and far-flung friends of these three men. People alive and reading this book today are almost 200 years past the events covered therein. I wonder if he was going for a gotcha moment for readers who may be the descendant of one of the trader's nephew's wife's in-laws. For my part, I cannot image that I'm not some very distant relative of Rice Ballard, but cannot undertake the research necessary to determine this as I no longer have a way to access Family Tree Maker files. Anyway...it struck me as odd to name so many people related to the traders if not intended to also call-out modern readers with roots in the South.

The thing I came away with was that there was a lot of money in the slave trade, but not really that much compared to modern trade in the stock market or in other modern industries. The author took great pains to make the numbers seem bigger, but even so, just not that impressive, which I guess makes it even worse. People will do almost anything for obscene amounts of cash...and the slave trade just wasn't that. It was a terrible thing for only moderate gains.

The peak into the financial systems of those days gave me an appreciation for the relatively clean and straightforward modern world. ... I wish I was kidding, but no, really, that financial parts of this book were just crazy-making. I don't know how people could even back then. If I had a time machine, I know how I'd get rich - by founding a normal fucking bank. This isn't @ the book/author, but just the craziness of Antebellum finance in general.

Overall, pass. If a reader needs something in-depth on the American slave trade, this will do, but it takes some definite slogging through minutiae to get at the substance...which is definitely there, but man, what a long read.

[Jeremy Canipe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor Rothman's book might well be categorized as a deeply researched group or composite biography of the lives and careers of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, three men from wildly different backgrounds who created the largest business devoted to the trade of enslaved African Americans from the Atlantic coast southern states into the Gulf Coast or cotton south states.

While I read fairy extensively on the interstate slave trade, tracing out the story and hearing the words written by these three men was pretty gut wrenching. On the one hand, Herbert Gutman estimated an enslaved person was sold in this period every 3.5 minutes, but that sort of scale can feel overwhelming. Reading this written about the experience of being enslaved and even sold by individual enslaved people is definitely haunting. Yes, somehow, the casual willingness and even glee by these hard-hearted, hard-fisted men, who actively paid money to take people away from beloved families and familiar homes - even while in slavery - and to chain them, to beat them, and in terrible truth, rape many women, and then write to each other in coded language about these violations, somehow chills to the bones for me.

They saw the growing economic decline of slavery in the Upper South and the great demand for enslaved laborers in the Gulf Coast South, and shrewdly turned what had been a sort of small time, occasional way to make money into an integrated, large-scale, heavily capitalized trade in human beings in a huge scale employing many men in the process. In fact, their company sole about 500,000 people to the Deep South.

These men were not pariahs. No, they had high level busienss and social connections. They connected northern capital and southern slavery. They also would own property used as the location for The University of the South and Angola Prison. Truly, a chilling and ghastly story.

[Zack McCullough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rothman's book describes with precision and detail the domestic slave trade in the United States, focusing on the three men who were the most responsible for its practice and its success from the 1830s through the 1850s. He demonstrates that not only was the slave trade a thriving institution itself, but that it was foundational to the national economy as a whole and nearly every part of society, with the exception of a few "radical abolitionists" supported these men and their trade in human beings.
The only real "fault" I could find with this book is not really a fault, but could be considered a warning perhaps. The author presents a lot of detailed information and really exposes the reader to the minutia of the slave trade. To be clear, the author worked for many years pouring over countless documents to bring us this book, so obviously there is a lot of information that is a lot to share and much that must be omitted in a work like this. But I worry that the general audience might still be overwhelmed by the level of detail. Nevertheless, if you can work through the book it is well worth the time.
This is a book that is difficult to read and will leave you feeling disgusted, angry, and grieved to know that these things really happened, to know that these men and the hundreds of others who worked directly with them are not movie villains designed to make you hate them, but actual human beings that existed in relatively recent times. These are actual people that can hardly be characterized as anything other than evil. These are my words, and not exactly the author's, but it is clear that the author is not interested in finding a redeeming value in these men. But honestly, even if he was, it would have to be fabricated.

[Wilson Gunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Careful historically researched book on three slave traders who gave shape to a commercial enterprise which forcibly relocated thousands of enslaved Black Americans from Mid-Atlantic states to Louisiana and Mississippi 1820-1840s. They made off with about $400,000,000 each in today's dollars. Their heirs managed to keep the real property even when enslaved persons were liberated. They stayed rich. They were even compensated for their financial losses while the formerly enslaved got nothing. All this while pretending to be respectable citizens at the expense of the enslaved. It required the imposition of vast suffering upon which their horrific trade depended. It required a white citizenry which denied this reality and insisted that it be hidden from view. Here we see the results of unrestrained, very efficient, coordinated capitalism which can traffic human beings. Still happening folks. Don't hide your eyes.

"An American history of race and capitalism that accounted fully for such structural inequalities and cultural priorities, and their broad cascades of consequences, would be neither simple or linear. But the core of that story would describe how enslaved people were denied the capacity to keep or pass to their children the wealth they generated and how those who enslaved them took their labor and their bodies as spoils. It would explain how men profited by trafficking the enslaved to promote private gain and national growth, diffused money and credit from that traffic throughout the country so that it could be leveraged for the benefit of nearly everyone but the enslaved themselves, and accustomed Americans to think of Black people as suitable for shackles and showrooms and cells." p362-3.

[Ary · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Ledger and the Chain” is a fascinating portrait of the most financially successful legal human trafficking operation of the 19th century, and the men who made it happen. There’s much here that will be familiar if you’ve read “The Half has Never Been Told,” “The American Slave Coast,” “Empire of Cotton,” or “Soul by Soul,” but the intimate portrait Rothman provides of Franklin, Armfield, Ballard, and their associates by way of correspondence and accounting records in truly shocking in its casually calculated cruelty. By focusing specifically on the practitioners of human trafficking, it provides a chilling perspective on the cruelty of the slave system in particular, and the callous logic of “free” markets. I found Rothman’s approach of providing both inflation-adjusted and GDP-normalized estimates of dollar values innovative as well.

My only real issue with Ledger and Chain is that I am not sure Rothman convincingly demonstrates his main point, that slave traders were not, as has been popularly portrayed, a reviled profession, a “necessary evil” eschewed by genteel antebellum society, but were in fact accepted in the upper echelons of an economy dependent on the services they provided for a handsome profit. I would argue that overlooking the moral failings of the wealthy is as American as apple pie and racism. That the wealthiest slave traders were accepted, even lionized, by the upper echelons of society is not incompatible with a general sense of disapproval or even outright revulsion at their less successful cohorts.

That being said, this is a fascinating work about America’s forced labor economy, and a disturbing portrait of how chattel slavery operated.

[G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be hard to read but proves an incredible resource if you want a better understanding of just how many areas of American life slave trading touched during the period in which Franklin, Armfield and Ballard operated. The dry logistics of exchanging money, arranging transportation and collecting loans are familiar. It is the pure tedium with which these facts were recorded that stuck with me - that men meticulously catalogued the names, ages and features of human beings the same way we would today record shipments of coffee or reams of paper. That Black bodies were used as collateral to secure their own enslavement. The contrast and combination of business as usual with the horrors it represented have stuck with me well after closing the last page. Dr. Rothman walks us through the taverns where deals were made to the fancy office/jail of the slave traders, from the markets were human beings were examined and sold off like cattle to the domestic ships owned by the slave traders that transported enslaved people from state to state and beyond. This book shows just how much of the machinery of our country slavery touched. One particular aspect I appreciated was that the author made an effort to include the viewpoint of enslaved people when he came across their voices in his research. I did not enjoy this book as I did not enjoy reading about horrible men doing sickening things. However, it has given me a much better understanding of slavery and American history so for that I believe it is very well worth the read.

[Dan Pepper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely of two minds about this book. It was definitely a narrative that could have been told more viscerally, with more quotes from the slave traders in question to balance out the economic narrative laid out in the shifting credit and cash they were using. Rothman admits he never quite got them in focus on his prologue but I got the impression it was more that he found it hard to look at them more so than a lack of understanding. They dug hurting people and enjoyed a line of work where they got to hurt tens of thousands and make lots of money. The lack of sources about the people they enslaved and stole and raped and abused leaves them out of the story to an unfortunate degree. It all becomes a bit of a weird book that was in a bit of middle providing some details about the lives of the people profiled but not enough to get much sense of them.

The economic history, however, is great and really gives a lot of detail and color to how and why forcing black people to work was so important and central to the U.S. changing from what it was in 1810 to what it was in 1860. The interlocking systems of credit, cotton profits, enslaving black people, theft of Indian lands and entrepreneurship come alive better than the people do here.

So overall a success as a book even though it left me wanting more.

[Sofia Moncada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why read about the men who dominated the domestic slave trade in America? I understand the knee jerk reaction in feeling some type of avoidance when it comes to talking about the white slavers as opposed to the enslaved population who suffered from their hands.

The author sums it up in their preface perfectly. It is important that we all understand the institution of slavery, how it was ran, and what kind of person it required. There is a paragraph in the intro (I won't spoil it) about monstrosity. It's all too easy for human, especially us living in this time, to believe that we are somehow exempt from the ability to commit atrocities. Only "monsters" do those things.

It is a comfortable fallacy to believe that it takes someone "special," someone conceived from birth to be truly heinous like some antichrist born of a satanic ritual. These men were born of mothers the same as you and I. They exemplify the American Dream. They had ambition and a certain callousness that exists today in many wealthy people.

The author takes great pains to name the enslaved when he can. It is thoroughly researched and there are passages of prose that are burned in my memory. All of the pulp fiction slavers you see in books, moves, and TV will feel like caricatures once you learn about Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard.

Reality is more frightening than fiction.

[Duane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Despite consuming many slave histories, narratives, biographies, economic books & documentaries, & visiting historical sites throughout the nation, I've never seen the slave world as seen by the slave trader. Isaac Franklin, John Armfield & Rice Ballard. who were the Rockerfellers and Fords of the 1820 & the 30s from their slave trading company, are names that have been largely whitewashed in the histories of our nation. Their story details the comprehensive array of strategies (financial tools/shenanigans, gross brutality, massive infrastructure, logistical planning, patronage, political blustering/bribery, indifference to human suffering, bottom-line focus) that was the foundation of the domestic slave trade that fueled the national expansion in the first half of the 1800s, Despite the long espoused notion that slave traders were despised in White society & shunned. Rothman shows this notion didn't apply if made slave trading a major industry, amassed millions & had respectable roots. Money & breeding bought respectability no matter how despicable your occupation. A must-read for anyone trying to understand the truth of American slavery & its seminal position in advancing America as a capitalist state.

[Selena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book focuses on the buying and selling of slaves within the US. I have always heard about the triangle and slaves being sent to the US. I have heard about the auctions, but never realized how rampant the trade was between individuals and "traders" once inside the states. I knew that families were often split up, but never realized how far they could have been taken from each other.

This focuses mainly on John Armfield, Rice Ballard and Isaac Franklin, who were respected business men, but also made rich for the transport and selling of slaves. While I knew slavery existed in NC, it really hit home to see cities and towns I have lived near, or been to. It made it "more real" to me to actually know of the places mentioned. Not that I didn't believe it was a part of NC past, but to read the actual places makes a difference.

I was given the opportunity to read this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Calvin Schermerhorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rothman’s book is essential reading for anyone interested in early US business history or American slavery. It’s a masterfully told story of a trio of intrepid and ruthless businessmen who formed Franklin & Armfield in the 1820s. Buying ships and managing finances they dominated the slave trade in the 1830s before cashing out and moving on right before a major recession. It’s both a very American tale of bootstrapping one’s way up and an anatomy of evil. The enslaved were real people whose lives and families the firm’s members destroyed for profit.
The Ledger & The Chain is a remarkable crossover between biography and business history. It’s a story every American should know.

[Carol Kearns · Rating 5 out of 5]

As stated in other reviews, this book is not an easy, emotion-grabbing read. It lays down the story of the businesses of three slave-traders from start to finish as well as their subordinates and families. Many enslaved people are mentioned by name, which I appreciated. I was also struck by the “whitewashing” of these evil men especially after their deaths. I found the second half of the book to be more gripping, but the first half is necessary to set the stage. The final chapter and epilogue help the reader understand what human-trafficking has done to America even today. Unfortunately, the suffering continues.

[Elizabeth Moreau Nicolai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. What I really liked about this was the language that centered the humanity of the enslaved people. Rothman used language like "enslaved people" and "human merchandise" to describe those men, women and children. When talking about the slave owners he avoided passive language like "he owned 10 slaves" but instead used active language such as "he enslaved 10 people" or "he held 10 people in bondage". You can own a cow. A cow is always a cow. But you don't own a slave who will always be a slave. You force the condition of slavery upon someone and his language reflected that. It was powerful.