Category talk:19th-century American slave traders

Cat title
Thank you for creating this! Just wanted to open a discussion about nomenclature. So...I'm by no means an expert but my understanding is that slave buying and selling was legal in slave states in the U.S. from 1808 to 1865, but


 * you weren't supposed to bring in new people from Africa/Cuba/South America, you were just supposed to buy and sell people who were born here or lived here prior to 1808 (people did it anyway, this was illegal and prosecutable and was a big project of both the US Navy and then very small Justice Dept); this is broadly called the Atlantic slave trade and was banned in 1808 per a deal made when the U.S. Constitution was ratified
 * In many slave states from like 1825 to 1850 it was also illegal to import slaves from out of state! This is almost forgotten now and was very poorly enforced in its day, but I just found a newspaper article about Georgia being mad in 1844 that Ziba B. Oakes' father was involved in an interstate trade there. Most of these laws were eventually repealed heading into the last decade before the civil war.

Anyway, I'm not sure being a post-1808 slave trader is distinct from being an otherwise an American slave trader. But I think there's definitely a category for slave traders involved in...crime? But not sure how to phrase.

There might also be something to chronological categorization? 17th c American slave trader v 19th c American slave trader.

thanks for reading my disjointed thoughts on this topic!

jengod (talk) 20:39, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Replying to myself and tagging @Lightiggy to mention that there was also kidnapping of legally free blacks and reselling them as slaves, cf 12 Years a Slave. This was a huge issue in border states and anywhere there was a significant population of legally free black or mixed-race people. The guy who sold Northrup was the spookily-named Theophilus Freeman; he's on my to-do list of American slave traders jengod (talk) 20:55, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, this category is referring exclusively to Transatlantic slave traders. Lightiggy (talk) 21:00, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * So I'm struggling a bit with the category title. What you seem to be wanting to describe is Slave traders who sold slaves in the United States after 1808. However, what you have is American people who sold slaves after 1808, which describes their nationality, not where they did business. I recommend renaming the category. Mason (talk) 17:29, 25 August 2023 (UTC)