Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade

Throughout the course of history, many historians have become committed to studying the condition of slavery in the southern half of the United States. Despite this growth of interest in southern history, one aspect seldom gets addressed: the domestic slave trade. It is in Stephen Deyle’s book, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life that the author submits that there has been a certain level of neglect about the domestic slave trade, and that the slave trade deserves further recognition because the very presence of the trade significantly influenced southern way of life. So much so, that the domestic slave trade even played out in the further divisions of the region that eventually led to secession and thus civil war. Over the course of his book, Deyle notes the rise in the slave trade following the closure of the Atlantic slave trade. Deyle also makes it a point of emphasis to address how the slave trade was preformed, focusing on how much of a common sight the slave trade was, but also examining southern justification of the domestic slave trade. Deyle does this by detailing how southern slaveholders were those who were the most involved in the slave trade, and were in fact involved in the business for the economic gain. Moreover, the slave trade additionally created an almost sectional crisis between the Upper and
In order to show the positives of slavery, Deyle offers an interesting perspective by devoting a chapter of his book to this point. It is in this chapter that Deyle focuses on the good-natured white planters who themselves believed slavery was an economic advantage to them, as well as viewing their slaves in a paternalistic nature. Additionally, Deyle even offers nuanced perspectives by recounting both northern abolitionist and African-American opinions and stories about the slave