You cannot understand the men and women who emerged from slavery to appear in the 1870 census of Wilson County without understanding who was not there — the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and children sold South in America’s domestic slave trade, known as the Second Middle Passage. 

I have no ancestors from Alabama or Mississippi or Louisiana or Texas, but my DNA matches scores of African-Americans who do. They are descended from the close kin of my North Carolina and Virginia ancestors, and the bits of identical chromosome we share is the only evidence of the crime that befell our common forebears.

To understand the depth and breadth of this trade, please study Edward E. Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. 

To glimpse how this trade unfolded among our own Wilson County people, see:

• Luke, Guilford, Orange, and Willis, who were taken to Alabama by John Scarborough circa 1836
• Aberdeen and Abraham, who were sent to Mississippi in 1848
• Martha, John, Adeline, Viney, and Mary, who were taken by local slavetrading firm Moye and Adams to Mississippi in 1849
• Jason, who was sold out of state by “Father of Wilson County” Joshua Barnes in 1855 
• Arch Daniels‘ heartbreaking provisions for his long-lost children

To see how buying and selling men, women, and children even locally devastated families:

• the sale of Sukey in 1842
• the sale of Marina in 1849
• the sales of Harry, 19, Alfred, 18, Oney, 17, and Gray, 14, in 1855
• the purchase of Agnes and her child in 1855
• the sales of Penelope, Emily, Rose, Caroline, Isham, Harriet, Lewis, Haywood, and Eugena in 1856
• the sale of Silah and her daughter Lucinda, about 1856
• the sale of Easter, 9, in 1857
• the sale of Westley, 8, in 1858
• the sales of 15 unnamed children in 1859
• the sale of Axey and two of her children in 1859
• the sale of Rachel and her child in 1859
• the sales of Dicy, Teresa, Guilford, Mary “Moll,” Judah, and William “Bill” in 1859
• the sale of George, 12, in 1859
• the sale of Harry, 28, in 1859
• the sale of Albert, 8, in 1859
• the sales of Peggy, 25, and her children Henry, 7, and Mourning, 3, and  Harry, 19, in 1860
• the sales of Elvy, Essex, Aaron, and Julia in 1860
• the sale of Matilda in 1861
• the sale of Charity, 30, Aaron, 13, Sarah, 7, Lucinda, 5, and Cloe, 9, on Christmas Eve 1861
• the sale of Mariah, age 17, circa 1864