yater1979

@Book{ yater1979,
    author = {George H. Yater},
    title = {Two Hundred Years at the Falls of the Ohio: A History of Louisville and Jefferson County},
    address = {Louisville},
    publisher = {Heritage Corporation},
    year = 1979,
}

pp. 42-43: Notes on the urban slavery in Louisville, where black residents (slave and free) made up 28% of the population in 1820, stoking white fears about ability to control enslaved people, especially given their scattered quarters, open socializing on the streets, and proximity to free states. A significant amount of hiring out also took place, as slaves worked “as roustabouts on the wharf, as laborers on street grading and repair, for construction projects of all kinds (including the Portland Canal), and as domestics in hotels and restaurants” (p. 43), as well as in an early ropewalk factory. The typical owner was “likely to be a merchant” who had little ability, under the law, to manumit slaves and thus had two alternatives if he had little need for their labor: sale down the river, or hiring out.