Video - Wealth and Wickedness: Unveiling the Brutal Legacy of America's Top Slave Traders
Meet the two richest and most cruel slave traders of the 1800s: Isaac Franklin and John Armfield. These two individuals are infamous for their cruelty and amassed wealth, as they dominated the market for “fancy girls” across several major U.S. cities, transporting around 10,000 people during their careers. “Fancy girls” referred to light-skinned female slaves, who were the most lucrative to sell. These girls could fetch as much as $2,000 each—an astronomical amount for the time. To put that into perspective, $2,000 was the average income a skilled craftsman would earn in 10 years. With that sum, one could purchase 500 acres of land and five prime horses. For Franklin and Armfield, slaves were seen as mere property, and fancy girls were treated like high-end luxury items, akin to the modern-day equivalent of designer handbags. What’s even more horrifying is that both men frequently abused the women they bought and sold, and they even joked about it in their correspondence. This shared behavior only deepened their friendship and highlighted the inhumanity of their actions.