James H. Birch (slave trader)

James H. Birch (or Burch; ) was an American slave trader in the District of Columbia.

In 1837, Dorcas Allen and her four children were put up for sale by her old owner's wife's new husband. While in Birch's "three-story Duke street pen" previously owned by Franklin & Armfield, she killed two of her four children rather than see them sold south. District Attorney Francis Scott Key advised Nathan Allen, husband of Dorcas and father of the children, to raise money to try to buy their freedom. With contributions from figures like John Quincy Adams it was done and Allen and her children were freed from Birch's shackles.

Birch was responsible for the kidnapping and selling of Solomon Northup, a free man, in Washington in 1841. Northup wrote a memoir of his time as a slave, Twelve Years a Slave. Birch was tried but acquitted for the kidnap of Northup. Birch was acquitted in part because the law did not allow Northup, a black man, to give evidence. Following his acquittal, Birch demanded charges be filed against Solomon Northup for trying to defraud him, but then withdrew the case.