In the area that became Wilson County, Wyatt Moye and Robert S. Adams were perhaps the major players in the domestic slave trade, moving humans from eastern North Carolina into the Deep South, where prices were high and demand insatiable.
It was a lucrative business, and both men eventually settled in Aberdeen, Monroe County, Mississippi. An 1852 newspaper ad touts Adams and his business partners’ arrangements: “They will keep at their depot in Aberdeen, during the coming fall and winter, a large lot of choice Negroes, which they will sell low for cash, or for bills on Mobile.”
Both Adams and Moye moved into large homes in town to signal their wealth. We’ve seen R.S. Adams’ grand Greek Revival mansion (which checks every antebellum architecture box); Moye’s more modest house was close enough that they’re in the same historic district, North Aberdeen. (Descriptions of the houses’ history describe Adams and Moye as “bankers.” It is true that they formed a money-lending concern in Aberdeen. Their wealth, however, was built on buying and selling enslaved people.)
Built circa 1855 and now known as the I.Y. Johnson House, Moye’s house was recently purchased for restoration after decades of deterioration.
I.Y. Johnson House, 108 West Canal Street, Aberdeen, Mississippi. Front and side facades. March 11, 2010, W. White, photographer.
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Wyatt Moye wore a lot of hats, including “general” (of what?), sheriff of Greene County, North Carolina state legislator (he introduced the bill to incorporate the Town of Wilson), and, as we’ve seen slave trader and money lender. He seems to have been in Mississippi full time shortly after 1850, but spent his last decade between Monroe County and business concerns in Saint Mary Parish, Louisiana. He is listed in both Mississippi and Louisiana in the 1860 census.
In the 1830 census of Greene County, N.C., Wyatt Moye reported owning 27 enslaved people.
In the 1850 census of Edgecombe County, N.C.: Wyatt Moye, 55, no occupation listed; [second] wife Louisa, 37; and daughter Louisa V., 17. [Judging by their neighbors, the Moyes appear to have lived in the Saratoga area of what is now Wilson County.]
In the 1850 slave schedule of Lowndes County, Mississippi, Wyatt Moye reported 27 enslaved people.
In the 1860 census of Western Division, Monroe County, Mississippi: trader Wyatt Moye, 66; [third] wife M.M., 44; W.A. Rover, 33, lumber dealer; and D. Farmer, 25, laborer. Moye reported owning $5500 in real property and $7500 in personal property (which would have included enslaved people).
In the 1860 slave schedule of Western Division, Monroe County, Mississippi, Wyatt Moye reported 8 enslaved people.
But also: in the 1860 census of Western Division, Saint Mary Parish, Louisiana: Yatt Moye, 50, planter; wife Mary, 32; Margaret Fisher, 21; and W.J. Deson, 42, agent. Moye reported a whopping $100,000 in real property and another $100,000 in personal property. [One hundred thousand dollars in 1860 is roughly $3.5 million today.]
In the 1860 slave schedule of Western Division, Saint Mary Parish, Louisiana, Wyatt Moye & Company is listed with 119 enslaved people.
Wyatt Moye died in 1862 in Saint Mary Parish. His body was returned to North Carolina for burial in Calvary Church cemetery, Tarboro.
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:
In the name of God, Amen. I Elisha Applewhite of the State of North Carolina and County of Wayne being sick and weak of body but of a sound mind and memory thanks be given unto god calling into mind the mortality of my body and knowing that it is appointed for all men once to die do make and ordain this my last will and testament that is to say principally and first of all I give recommend my soul into the hands of almighty god that gave it and my Body I recommend to the Earth to be buried in a decent Christian Buriel at the discretion of my Ext. nothing doubting but at the General Resurrection I shall recieve the same again by the mighty power of god and as touching such worldy Estate wherewith it has pleased god to Bless me with in this life I give and devise and dispose of the same in the following manner to wit:
I lend my wife Elizabeth during her widowhood ten acres of land including all the houses and buildings where I now love I also lend her during her natural life one negro man by the name of Ishmael I also lend her during her natural life two negroes Avy & Narcissa also I give her my black mare and three cows and calves and two sows and pigs and one feather bed and stead and furniture and my loom and gear and two woolen wheels and one flax wheel and two paid of cards one painted chest and formerly called her own and six setting chairs all my kitchen furniture including the pot iron pewter and earthen ware and eight head of sheep her choice and all the gees and poultry and one years provision to be alloted her by my executors and one other respectable person and farming tools sufficient for her farm.
Item I lend my daughter Smithey Deans two negroes by the name of Aberdeen and Abram during her natural life and provided she ever has an heir begotten of her body to live to the age of twenty one years the right and title to remane in her forever but if she dies without issue the said negros to be sold and the money divided between all my children then living.
Item I give my son John Applewhite two negroes by the names of Dick and Feriba; also I give my son Peter Applewhite one negro woman Anzy and all the children she has with her and one boy by the name of Henderson; also I lend my daughter Dorotha Daniel during her natural life one negro woman by the name of Sarah and if she is taken out of the house from the said Dorotha business and put in the cornfield with out her consent it is my wish that my son Peter take the negro Sarah and higher her out or keep her himself and pay the said Dorotha the worth of her labour and after the descas of my daughter Dorotha I give the negro Sarah to my Grandson Elisha Daniel him and his heirs forever.
Also I give my son Robert Applewhite two negroes by the names of John and Imigin also I give my daughter Martha two negroes by the names of Rose and Hannah they and there increase to her and her heirs forever. Also I give to my son Lewis Applewhite two negroes Killis and Cilvy also I give my son Jesse Applewhite four negroes by the names of Jacob Chaney Eceline and Crisa also I give my daughter Elizabeth one negro boy by the name of David.I also give her after the widowhood of my wife Avy and all her increase and after the death of my wife I give her my negro man Ismail and one death bed and furniture one woolen wheel and one pair of cards.I give to my son Jesse all my land on the west side of Ballards Mill Swamp and two hundred and fifty acres where I now live lyin next to Westly Howells including the buildings where I now live the exception above named one sorrel horse also I give my daughter Elizabeth my gray horse and one cow and calf also I give my son Jesse one feather bed and furniture and one cow and calf the balance of my land not given away in legisses to be equally divided between my two sons Robert and Jesse and the balance of my Estate not given away in legisses to be sold and all my just debts to be paid lastly I nominate and appoint my friend Zadock Peacock and my son Robert Applewhite hole and sole Executors of this my last Will and Testament this the 21st of February 1835. /s/ Elisha Applewhite
Signed, sealed and acknowledged in the presence of us /s/ Raiford Hooks, B.W. Vail
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Elisha Applewhite (1770-1835) lived in the Nahunta area northeast Wayne County, adjacent to Wilson County. He was the uncle of Henry Applewhite, whose plantation house near Stantonsburg, Wilson County, is described here, and his son Robert Applewhite married Elizabeth Deans, daughter of Bartley Deans of Nash and Wilson County. In 1848, Bartley Deans, you may recall, placed two enslaved men with the slave-trading firm of Moye & Adams for sale on speculation in Mississippi. Those two men, Aberdeen and Abraham, as shown in this will, had originally been owned by Deans’ son-in-law’s father, Elisha Applewhite, whose will devised the men to his unmarried daughter, Smithey Deans Applewhite.
North Carolina, Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998[database on-line],http://www.ancestry.com.
By virtue and in pursuance of a commission to me directed from the Superior Court of Law for the County of Wilson State of North Carolina, to take the deposition of Robert S. Adams, a witness on the part of the Defendant in the above entitled Cause, I have this day caused to come before me the said Robert L. Adams, who being by me, first duly sworn to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, touching and concerning the facts in aforesaid suit, deposes as follows.
I stayed all night near Bartlett Deans on my way to Mississippi on the night of the 14th September AD 1848 with a lot of Negroes belonging to Moye & Adams and Bartlett Deans offered to sell us (Moye & Adams) two Negroes, Aberdeen and Abraham, both about twenty Six years old, for Eleven Hundred and fifty Dollars on one or two years Credit, with Six per cent Interest, and we refused to buy at that price. We then made with him the following Contract. We were to take the two Negroes above mentioned to Mississippi for the said Deans, and to hire them out for said Deans in the State of Mississippi Monroe County, or to deliver them over to some agent, and bring him the agents receipt, or if R.S. Adams could see them, so as to make them nett said Deans Eleven Hundred and fifty Dollars, then they were to be sold: but if said Adams hired them, Deans was to pay all expenses and trouble for bringing them out, And on that occasion, said Deans did offer to hand us the money for bringing them out, which money we refused, not knowing whether the negroes would be sold on his account or hired. I did not deliver the above named Negroes over to any agent, because I thought I could sell them for more money that limit set on them. And all over the Eleven Hundred and fifty Dollars, was to go to us for bringing the Negroes out, in paying us for our trouble and expense. I did sell said Negroes on the 11th day of November AD 1848 to Lewis McLendon, he giving me John Brooks for security. I consulted with several of my best friends, before consummating the trade, if it would not be a good debt, and was told, it would be undoubted, as to the solvency of the Debt. I then sold the said Negroes for the Sum of Thirteen Hundred and fifty Dollars on one and two years credit with interest from the date at the rate of Six per cent, per annum, as Deans agent, and gave the Bill of Sale, sighning Deans name by me as his agent. At the time we received the said negroes and gave our receipt for them, Deans instructed us to take them, and if we sold them to sell either on time or on Cash just as we thought best, and as Negroes at that time were very low and dull we had to sell all of our lot on time, and also sold his in the same way. When the money became due I applied to McLendon several times for the money, and he as often promised that he would pay; but we found he would not Comply with his promise, and we then put the notes in the hands of an Attorney to bring suit upon, which was brought in the United States Court for the North District of Mississippi. There he through his Attorney’s plea, the Statute then in force in the State of Mississippi declaring that any Negro over fifteen years of age, should be accompanied by a certificate, Sworned to by two freeholders before the Clerk of the Court that they were of good character. The Judge, then presiding, decided, or was about to decide, sustaining the pleas, when the Counsel in both sides agreed for each party to pay half the cost, and stop the suit, in that Court, as an appeal could not be taken from that Court to the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington City, because the Sum was under two thousand Dollars. We then commenced suit on both the notes in the Circuit Court of Monroe County State of Mississippi. He made the same pleas in the said Circuit Court, which were made in the United States District Court, and which were not sustained there. He then took an appeal to the High Court of Errors and Appeals for the State of Mississippi in both cases. The said High Court of Errors and Appeals sustained his pleas and liberated him from both the notes. We in all the Courts employed Messrs Davis and Acker and William H. Dowd, who were considered as good Lawyers as any in the Northern portion of Mississippi. This we did in accordance with letters received from Bartlett Deans, which telling us to employ the best Counsel we could get. He in said letters recognized the suits as his and not ours. The endorsements on the receipt was put on them after the Negroes were sold; the one written by Wyatt Moye was on the receipt when I put the bottom one on written by myself, which I did at the March Superior Court of Wayne County at Waynesboro about the last week in March AD 1849. At the time I put the endorsements on the receipt Deans did not claim the money from us, but from the notes. Nor I never heard of his claiming it from us until I hear that he had sued Wyatt Moye. Always when talking to me about the debt, he spoke of it as his own, and would want to know when he would get his money from those men out in Mississippi whom he had sued.
His only object he said in getting me to put the endorsements on the receipt, stating the time the Negroes were sold, was to know from what time the claim began to draw Interest. I saw Deans several times during the time the suits were pending, and he always asked me about the suits and how they were progressing, and always spoke of the suits as his own, and never in any other way, only as his own. I am entirely uninterested in the suit in Wilson Superior Court State of North Carolina between Bartlett Deans and Wyatt Moye which grew out of the sale of the two Negroes Aberdeen and Abraham as he, the said Wyatt Moye, was given me a release both in Law an Equity, which release I annex to this deposition marked Exhibit B. /s/ Robert S. Adams
The State of Mississippi, Monroe County } I Newton J. Beckett Justice of the Peace in and for said State and County, do hereby Certify that I caused to come before me, at the office of William F. Dowd Aberdeen Mississippi Robert S. Adams, the witness named in the foregoing Interrogatories and whose name is signed to this depositon, who being by me first duly sworn to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth did depose thereto in the foregoing answers or statement; that the said statement of the said witness was by me reduced to writing in his presence, read to him and signed by him as his deposition in my presence. I do hereby further certify that the said deposition has not been altered, or changed since the same was subscribed by the said [illegible] and that the same has remained in my possession even to the time of sealing and delivering the same to the Post Master of Aberdeen Monroe County State of Mississippi. In witness whereof I do hereunto set my hand and affix my hand & private seal having no seal of office this the 29th day of April AD 1858 /s/ Newton J. Beckett {seal} Justice of the Peace and Commissioner
Exhibit B.
State of Mississippi Monroe County April 26th 185[illegible] I hereby Release both as law & Equity Robert L. Adams from all liability growing out of a Suit in the Wilson Superior Court State of North Carolina B. Deans vs Wyatt Moye related to two negroes Aberdeen & Abraham or any other suit which may grow out of said Transaction. Witness by hand & seal /s/ Wyatt Moye Witness /s/ J.E. Cunningham
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It is safe to say that Wyatt Moye and Robert S. Adams were two of the largest slave traders ever to come out of Wilson County. For nearly twenty years — individually, together and in other partnerships — these men built thriving businesses facilitating the sale of enslaved men and women in eastern North Carolina “down the river” to Mississippi and Louisiana.
Moye was born in Greene County in 1793 and lived in Edgecombe until about 1845, when “soon after his wife’s death, Wyatt left for Mississippi where he established Wyatt Moye & Co., which either owned plantations or operated them for many of the wealthy landowners from Eastern North Carolina, including his future son-in-law, William Francis Dancy of Tarboro.” At least, this is way his memorial at Findagrave.com puts it.
In fact, Moye had not left North Carolina for good. On December 20, 1848, as senator from Edgecombe County, he introduced a bill in the Senate to “incorporate Toisnot Depot and Hickory Grove in the County of Edgecombe into a town by the name of Wilson.” He is listed in the 1850 census of Edgecombe County with no occupation but owning $5000 in real property. Ten years later, he is listed in the Western Division of Monroe County, Mississippi, as a “trader” owning $5500 in real property and $7500 in personal property [read: slaves]. Simultaneously, more than 400 miles away in Saint Mary Parish, Louisiana, Wyatt Moye & Company appears in the slave schedule as the owner of 119 slaves. Moye died at Dancy, his Saint Mary plantation, in 1862 and was buried in Tarboro, North Carolina.
Robert S. Adams (1813-1873) was appointed postmaster at Stantonsburg, then in Edgecombe County, in 1840. He seems to have maintained part-time residency in the Stantonsburg area into the 1850s, but otherwise lived in Aberdeen, Monroe County, Mississippi. He built a grand columned Greek Revival-style mansion there in 1856 and was counted among the town’s residents in the 1860 federal census.
The kerfuffle over Aberdeen and Abraham was not the first deal to go bad for Moye and Adams. In 1849, Moye, Adams and Stephenton Page of Edgecombe County formed a partnership to buy and sell slaves. Using Moye and Adams’ money, Page bought six slaves for $2,762.50. One, Jim, escaped, but Page took the others — Martha, John, Adeline, Viney and Mary — to Mississippi. When he could not sell them, he turned them over to Adams, who sold them for $3375. However, in an action filed in Edgecombe County in 1850, Moye and Adams alleged that Page had captured and sold Jim without sharing any profits and owed them other expenses.
Adams formed another partnership in Aberdeen, Mississippi, with Moses J. Wicks:
Natchez Free Trader, 20 November 1852.
In the letters below, he corresponded with Ziba B. Oakes, Esq., a Charleston slave trader, concerning sending a group of slaves to Wilmington and purchasing a “small lot of negroes” in Richmond:
Directions for sending Negroes to Wilmington. Letter from Robert S. Adams to Ziba B. Oakes, 29 July 1853. Rare Books Department, Boston Public Library.
Request for remittance. Adams & Wicks, Aberdeen, Mississippi, manuscript letter signed to Ziba B. Oakes, 4 January 1854. Rare Books Department, Boston Public Library.
Adams-French House, Aberdeen, Mississippi. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988.
Bartley Deans, Sr. (1776-1860), for his part, was a Nash County-born farmer whose last will and testament disposed of 44 enslaved people.
Records of Slaves and Free People of Color, Miscellaneous Records, Wilson County Records, North Carolina State Archives.
