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The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America
Top of the pile
89
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
85/100Critics
94/100Scholars
88/100Author:
Joshua D. Rothman
Publisher:
Basic Books
Date:
April 20, 2021
Historian Rothman reveals the harrowing forgotten story of America's internal slave tradeâand its role in the making of America.
What The Reviewers Say
... tremendous.
... brilliant.
... gut-wrenching.
In order to flesh out his case, Rothman makes the masterful dramatic stroke of putting three prosperous slave traders front and center: Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard. The Ledger and the Chain is in large part a biographical study of these men, both as individuals and as symbols of Rothman’s larger argument. Readers watch them preen and hustle and manage their finances, and although Rothman regularly reminds us that these men were very comfortable with 'the intimate daily savageries of the slave trade,' he does an eye-opening job of making these three vile men three-dimensionally human.
