Monroe Democrat, 12 May 1852.

Why were Robert Adams and Wyatt Moye, slave traders from Edgecombe County, North Carolina, drawn to Aberdeen, today a sleepy town of fewer than 5000 people?

Again, John Rodabough, this time from his 8 April 1971 Aberdeen Examiner column “Part I Slavery”:

“That portion of Monroe County opened to settlement by the treaty of 1816 was a mixture of sandy-loam soils and hills covered with thick forests. It was connected to the outside world by a sometimes navigable river and an almost impossible road called Gaines Trace. This was land which did not attract the large plantation owner with his multitude of slaves. … However, the Chickasaw treaty which gave up the lands west of the Tombigbee River in 1832 greatly changed the situation.

“The Black Prairie, as it is often called was ideal for the plantation system. The thick black lime — impregnated soil was fertile and seemed inexhaustible. … Scions of eastern families rushed into the area, and … the slave population [increased] from 943 in 1830 to 4083 in 1840. … It was a land which in another decade would be a small replica of the Natchez District.

“In 1836 the city of Aberdeen was founded. … During the 1840’s the Aberdeen newspapers frequently had advertisements dealing with runaway slaves and notices of sales. In general it was a decade of fulfilling the processes begun in the 1830s.

“By 1850 the slave population was 11,717, and the white population stood at only 9418. By this time Aberdeen and the western half of Monroe County had become a part of the legendary Old South of thousands of salves toiling in view of the pillared mansion. A contemporary newspaper stated the county’s condition in these words:

The prairie is now one vast cotton field, with nothing to relieve the eye but its lengthy zigzag fencing — where no sound is heard to break the dull monotony of the oppressive silence, save the harsh command of the overseer or the sharp crack of his whip as he drives the sooty negro on through mud and rain. All is dreary, gloomy, and monotonous. On a cloudy day, it forcibly reminds one of the fabulous world of gloom, which borders on the river Styx. Is it not the shore from which many will take ferriage to Pluto’s dominions?

“[By 1850, Aberdeen] was now the second largest city of Mississippi and was rapidly overtaking Natchez, which was only slightly larger. As a result of its size and wealth, the city was considered one of the three permanent slave markets in the state. There was only one regular slave auction house, but many transactions took place at commission houses, certain street corners, and on the Courthouse steps. The slave auction house was that of Robert Adams & Moses J. Wicks; it was located on the southwest corner of Commerce and Walnut Street in a brick building. M.J. Wicks & Co. began advertising in Aberdeen in 1845 as a dry good and grocery house. It appears the firm entered the slave trade in January, 1848.

“By 1850 Robert Adams was associated with the firm, and he served as a purchasing agent in the East. The firm was dissolved and reinstated several times in the late 1850s, finally evolving into a banking partnership. Others important in the trade were: L.D. Leedy’s Action House, Hester & Lancaster; Wm. H. Kidd & Company, who hoped “to be able to please the most fastidious taste: Hampton & Herndon; Saunders & Bradley; and J.B. Franklin of Lauderdale, Tennessee, who advertised in 1852 that he was bringing 100 Negroes to the market at fair prices — ‘Small profits and quick sales is my motto.’

“Most of the Negroes brought in by outside speculators, or ‘speckled ladies’ as the Negroes called them, were sold at Clarke’s Corner, which is now the southeast corner of Commerce and Chestnut Streets. These transient vendors of slaves had to pay $1 for each slave exhibited and $5 for each slave sold in the city of Aberdeen.”