Mary Johnson Enslaved part 2

 Walter L. Campbell Slave Trader

Walter L. Campbell  Sale  of Mary Johnson to  Delia E. Stovall  of Pike County, Mississippi December 6, 1852

Transcribed Bill of Sale

The domestic slave trade became very active after 1808. The leading cash crop in Maryland and Virginia was tobacco dating back to the early American colonies. Without harvest mechanization, tobacco production on plantations required hard physical labor. First indentured servants, free African Americans and later slave labor.   Tobacco plants could deplete soil nutrients and sales to foreign markets decreased.   As tobacco production decreased, cotton production aided by the invention of the Cotton Gin increased in southern territories and states. The need for slave labor increased in different geographic areas.

 Baltimore County, Maryland had a significant population of free people of color and enslaved black people. There were incidents in which free black people aided the enslaved to escape from slavery.  There were also situations of married couples of free and enslaved people.  This mixture gave hope that the manumission of the enslaved person might one day happen.  

 Baltimore City was involved in the Southern slave trade. Walter L. Campbell is the slave trader who’s noted on the bill of sale from Mary Johnson. His occupation at 27 years old was slave dealer born in 1823 in Georgia from the 1850 Orleans Parish Louisiana Federal census. He is known to have a possible brother Bernard M. Campbell who aided him in the slave trade. His name is enumerated on the first line. 

 

"United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MCJ8-VXV : 22 December 2020), Walter L Campbell, New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

The city of Baltimore now has a Slave Trade Historic Marker located between the Inner Harbor and Fells Point identifying the area were "slave pens" were located. These pens housed the enslaved people by slave traders prior to being shipped to southern areas in the county. New Orleans was one of the ports. There was another slave trader Hope Hull Slater who preceded Campbell and had a designated area in Baltimore, Maryland and New Orleans, Louisiana that  slave pens and slave auctions took place. 

Walter L. Campbell purchased the site on Pratt Street in Baltimore and the corner of Moreau and Esplanade streets in New Orleans and published in advertisements. This was known as 'Slater's old stand".

The Baltimore Sun Newspaper Baltimore Maryland October 17, 1848 page 4

Times Picayune New Orleans Louisiana November 22, 1850

 Walter L. Campbell had a very lucrative business selling enslaved people. He not only advertised in newspapers but was in the 1861 New Orleans business directory listed among other slave dealers.

It is probably from these publications that Delia E. Stovall read which resulted in the purchase and enslavement of Mary Johnson on December 6, 1852.   Below is the New Orleans Times Picayune advertisement published weeks before Mary Johnson was sold and later taken to Pike County, Mississippi. Transported to the deep south made it unlikely that freedom would occur.

Times Picayune New Orleans Louisiana November 4, 1852.

More information to come.

----The Tree Gardener