Slavery helped turn this country into a financial colossus and the largest and most lucrative
traffickers in Black human flesh plied their trade in what was known as Washington City. With
auction blocks steps from episcopal churches, Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard
had offices at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, VA, which is now Freedom House Museum.
John Franklin was a respected Episcopalian who regularly conducted business in bars near
Lafayette Square. Their compatriots kidnapped Blacks (enslaved and free) off the streets of
downtown Washington who were then marched or shipped from Alexandria docks over 1,000
miles down the Potomac and Chesapeake to Alabama and Louisiana. Other employees
conducted business in Prince George’s and Charles Counties. As parishes in the Episcopal
Diocese of Washington begin their quest to discover what role they may have played in slavery
and continued discrimination, join us as we host historian and author of “The Ledger and the
Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders shaped America,” Joshua D. Rothman, as he relates
how the upper south (Washington City) fed the deep south’s need for enslaved persons. The
event is free; however, registration is required.

Please use this link to register:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMode-oqD8iHtQtXNR0em0PKrAlu16hXsFB