Slave Trading in a Republic of Credit: Financial Architecture of the US Slave Market, 1815-1840

Credit facilitated the intra-US slave trade's growth between 1815 and the financial crisis of the late 1830s. Movement of money across geographic space was the enslavers chief challenge, and this article details the process of slaving firms building credit and remitting funds with which they constructed supply chains in bondspersons. Slave market development was dependent on US and North Atlantic financial integration and comprised three stages. These included use of the Second Bank of the USA, supplemented by domestic bills of exchange, and culminating in the use of southern state banks with northern correspondent ties, which the financial crisis severed.