How the Civil War Affected the Domestic Slave Trade with Robert Colby | BRI Scholar Talks
How did Union military advances and emancipation policies affect the slave trade in the Confederacy? In this episode of Scholar Talks, Robert Colby, Assistant Professor of American history at the University of Mississippi, joins BRI Senior Fellow Tony Williams to discuss his book, An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South.
This episode covers how the Civil War affect the domestic slave trade, the complex responses southern slaveholders had to collapsing economic conditions, and the effects of Union military advances and emancipation policies.
0:05 For this episode of Scholar Talks, the guiding question is how did the Civil War affect the domestic slave trade? Our guest, Robert Colby, is an assistant professor of history at the University of Mississippi. After teaching at the center for American Studies at Christopher Newport University, he has published in numerous academic journals and has won numerous prizes.
0:27 His first book, An Unholy Traffic Slave Trading in the Civil War South, is the topic of today’s discussion. He’s a friend of vraie and has participated in numerous teacher programs presenting lectures there. I am Tony Williams, senior fellow with the Bill of rights Institute. And I want to welcome you to another episode of Scholar Talks.
0:50 In the American Civil War series. Robert, I want to thank you very much for joining us. Great. And, you know, I really loved In Unholy Traffic. it’s really a great book. you know, we we learn. Well, I personally, I, I personally knew, you know, a good amount about the domestic slave trade.
1:13 You know, in the antebellum period. But, you know, I didn’t know as much about the, this, this period of the Civil War and the effects it might have had on it and made a lot of facile assumptions that it would have just completely broken it down. And slaveholders would have been, you know, getting rid of their safe persons and selling them. but you really tell a very complex picture, and I can’t wait to dive in
1:38 and hear more. Great. All right, so, helping to set the scene a little bit. Can you explain for our audience, sort of the character, the contours and the importance of the domestic slave trade? before the Civil War?
3:26 Right. and so, you know, we had the outbreak of the Civil War. And what impact did that have, as well as the creation of the Confederate government, the Confederate States of America, have on the domestic slave trade.
4:58 Right.
6:25 Very interesting. So, So how do these, you know, the war starts and, you know, we have several important battles. So how did these Union military advances and those emancipation policies that you mentioned. How did they affect the course of the slave trade in the Confederacy?
9:27 Right. And, the follow up, you have, a great series of maps throughout the book which really illustrate this very clearly and very starkly that, you know, the, you know, once a city or an area is taken over and it used to have a slave market, that’s closed and sort of the lines change and so forth about where, where this, slave trade is occurring.
12:12 Right right. And that leads me to my next question. Actually, you know, you you describe a very complex series of responses by Southern slaveholders to the collapsing economic conditions, all the inflation and so forth. you mentioned their their confidence or wavering confidence in the future of the Confederacy and in the institution of slavery,
12:35 fluctuate, you know, fluctuating prices. all this sort of comes together and formulates complex responses. Can you make some generalizations about that?
17:01 Right right. A very a very complex story. So, with the end of the war, we had a collapse of slavery. the end of the domestic slave trade. But how did it represents the tragedy and unfulfilled promise of reconstruction? You have some really sort of morose and chilling stories, although,
17:21 some happy stories about sort of finding loved ones and that kind of thing.
17:56 You know.
20:16 Right. interesting. So, coming back to our guiding question in a nutshell. so how did the Civil War affect the domestic slave trade?
21:46 Right. Well, you’ve certainly proven that. Robert, I want to thank you very much for joining us. Congratulations on your important and fascinating new book and unholy traffic. Right. And thank you all for joining us on this episode of Scholar Talks. Check out the other interviews in our new American Civil War series on our channel.
22:09 Thank you.