Williams' Gang
A Notorious Slave Trader and his Cargo of Black Convicts

Explores a Washington, DC slave trader's legal misadventures associated with transporting convict slaves through New Orleans.

Jeff Forret (Author)

9781108730365, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 December 2021

484 pages
23.1 x 15.2 x 2.9 cm, 0.732 kg

'Williams' Gang is simply excellent and a must-read for anyone who wishes to know more about the history of the post-Revolutionary War slave trade in America, or the slave trade coming out of Washington, DC.' George W. Reid, The Journal of African American History

William H. Williams operated a slave pen in Washington, DC, known as the Yellow House, and actively trafficked in enslaved men, women, and children for more than twenty years. His slave trading activities took an extraordinary turn in 1840 when he purchased twenty-seven enslaved convicts from the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond with the understanding that he could carry them outside of the United States for sale. When Williams conveyed his captives illegally into New Orleans, allegedly while en route to the foreign country of Texas, he prompted a series of courtroom dramas that would last for almost three decades. Based on court records, newspapers, governors' files, slave manifests, slave narratives, travelers' accounts, and penitentiary data, Williams' Gang examines slave criminality, the coastwise domestic slave trade, and southern jurisprudence as it supplies a compelling portrait of the economy, society, and politics of the Old South.

Introduction: the slave depot of Washington, DC
1. An ambush
2. The Yellow House
3. Sale and transportation
4. Mobile to New Orleans
5. Legal troubles
6. The Millington Bank
7. State v. Williams
8. Slave trading in 'hard times'
9. Politics of the slave pen
10. Brothers
11. The Louisiana State Penitentiary
12. Closure
13. Perseverance
14. Violet
Epilogue: the legal legacy of the domestic slave trade.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK]