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The business of the slave trade was extremely lucrative for those involved in it. Some of the slaves in the markets were newly imported from Africa; others had been reimported from the West Indies; still others were put up for sale by their owners in America.
Most of the slaves brought into the New World were sold in the South, particularly around Jamestown, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina. Between 1710 and 1769, somewhere around 52,504 slaves were "legally" imported into Virginia; in South Carolina between 1733 and 1785, the figure was 67,769 slaves-- but the records here are not as complete as for Virginia, and the total number is expected to be substantially higher.
Of course, the slaves just arriving from Africa had a harrowing voyage behind them, and it showed. So "slave-traders would go to any lengths to hide the weakness of their slaves. Anuses were plugged with padding, grey hair dyed black, mouths thoroughly washed out, bodies cleansed and oiled. Only then were the planters allowed to look" (Walvin 60).
The selling methods differed, as well. One form was the "scramble", where slaves were either taken to a large yard or remained on board the ship. Slavers and buyers would have agreed beforehand "to a per capita price." At an appointed time, the buyers were let in, running through the yard or ship and grabbing or tying with handkerchiefs or rope all the slaves they could. Frightened slaves often climbed the walls or jumped overboard in this type of marketing, to be recaptured later and sold (Walvin 61).
By the time everything was over, the captains had usually turned a considerable profit. For example, Capt. Theodore Conot's balance sheet for his 1827 voyage of the Fortuna, laden with 220 slaves (of whom only three died) on their way to Havana, Cuba, shows that he was over $40,000 dollars richer by the time everything had been sold (Mannix 198).
Daniel Mannix says it best-- "The risks of the illegal slave trade were almost as high as the profits, but determined men were always willing to disregard the first for the sake of the second" (Mannix 199).
A poster advertising the sell of slaves
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