An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South

On Wednesday, March 5, 2025, Robert Colby, assistant professor of history at the University of Mississippi, will discuss his new book, (Oxford University Press, 2024), in the UVA Special Collections Library auditorium! This event is free and open to the public. Paid parking is available nearby at the Central Grounds Parking Garage located near the UVA bookstore.

From the publisher's page: "As An Unholy Traffic shows, slave trading helped Southerners survive and fight the Civil War, as well as to build the future for which they fought. They mitigated the crises the war spawned by buying and selling enslaved people, using this commerce to navigate food shortages, unsettled gender roles, the demands of military service, and other hardships on the homefront. Some Rebels speculated wildly in human property, investing in slaves to ward off inflation and to buy shares in the slaveholding nation they hoped to create. Others traded people to counter the advance of emancipation. Given its centrality to their nationhood, Confederates went to great lengths to prolong the slave trade, which, in turn, supported the Confederacy. For those held in slavery, the surviving slave trade dramatically shaped their pursuit of freedom, inserting a retrograde movement into some people's journeys toward liberty while inspiring others to make the risky decision to escape."

Host or Publisher John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History