fitzpatrick2008

@PhDThesis{ fitzpatrick2008,
    author = {Benjamin Lewis Fitzpatrick},
    title = {Negroes for Sale: The Slave Trade in Antebellum Kentucky},
    school = {University of Notre Dame},
    year = 2008,
}

https://curate.nd.edu/show/pn89d50750n

p. 32: notes the rise in the number of “agents” who brokered the sale and hiring of slaves in urban areas like Louisville, giving flexibility to owners: “By the 1830s, Louisville contained almost fifty merchants, brokers, and others who sold or leased slaves. The brokers arranged yearly contracts for the slaves, while ordinarily collecting ‘7 1/2 per cent for hiring out, bonding … and attention during the year in case of sickness. …’”

p. 33: “By the eve of the Civil War, slave traders sold both prime male and female slaves for $1,500 to $2,000. Although Kentucky was not a cotton cultivating state, the prices for slaves on the state’s intrastate market followed prices for cotton nationally. In the late 1840s, when the nation began to rebound from the financial panic of 1837, prices for cotton rose and so too did the prices for slaves throughout the South” (citing Lucas, 85, and deyle2005, 57-60).

pp. 45-53: Concerns among Kentucky enslavers that “hiring out” practices would weaken the institution by encouraging escape and autonomy, but they persisted because it was profitable