79 Facts About Isaac Franklin

Isaac Franklin was an American slave trader and plantation owner.

Isaac Franklin relocated operations to the Forks of the Road market outside city limits, where he continued to work until his retirement from slave trading in 1835.

Isaac Franklin married Adelicia Hayes in 1839, and with her had four children.

Isaac Franklin settled in the Cumberland basin prior to the American Revolution and entered work as a longhunter.

Isaac Franklin served in territorial defense during Lord Dunmore's War and the American Revolutionary War under James Robertson, and assisted in the construction of frontier forts.

Isaac Franklin married Mary Lauderdale, the daughter of his employer, when she was 13.

Isaac Franklin's property, including his slaves, was portioned among his children following his death in 1828.

Isaac Franklin was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and served in various battles against the Creeks, including at the Battle of Tallushatchee and under Andrew Jackson's command at Talladega.

Isaac Franklin left the army in 1814, and briefly entered a protracted business dispute with Gabriel Tichenor, the cashier of the Mississippi Territory's sole bank.

In 1807, the eighteen-year-old Isaac Franklin was hired by his older brothers, James and John Isaac Franklin, to sail by flatboat from Gallatin to market at New Orleans via the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers.

John and Isaac Franklin were sent east to acquire slaves and cash the bills.

John stayed in Maryland, purchasing slaves in Baltimore or Alexandria, while Isaac Franklin proceeded by ship to Providence.

James and Isaac Franklin proceeded to sell the slaves in Natchez and New Orleans, but were unsuccessful in receiving payment for the outstanding bills of exchange, eventually selling them at a discount in Nashville.

Isaac Franklin continued slave trading, largely due to personal enjoyment and talent for the industry.

Isaac Franklin's earliest recorded bill of sale was in July 1819.

Isaac Franklin traveled frequently across large portions of Virginia and Maryland, making slave purchases at various hotels, taverns, and courthouses.

Isaac Franklin paid to stow the enslaved at local jails, occasionally leading to jailbreaks and manhunts for the fugitive slaves.

In 1819, Isaac Franklin was sued by a planter in Mississippi for selling him six "lame, blind, consumptive, cancerous, and otherwise diseased" slaves.

Unlike the "makeshift pens" used by itinerant slave traders in Natchez, the Isaac Franklin brothers' facility was a sizeable complex able to confine many enslaved people at once.

Isaac Franklin hired agents in Virginia and Maryland to purchase slaves for his sales, occasionally traveling to the region to supervise purchases.

In 1824, Isaac Franklin met John Armfield, a former shopkeeper likely working as a stagecoach driver in Virginia.

However, Armfield, advised by Isaac Franklin, entered the slave trading industry in Guilford County, North Carolina.

Smith Franklin left Isaac's employment, although it is unknown if this was related to the formation of the partnership.

Isaac Franklin employed large numbers of agents, smaller traders, clerks, and assistants in order to facilitate the large volume of enslaved people purchased and transported.

James Rawling Isaac Franklin was later sent to conduct sales in the lower Mississippi.

From his Faubourg Marigny office, Isaac Franklin sold large numbers of slaves, steadily shipped to the facility by Armfield and the firm's agents.

In late 1829, Isaac Franklin encountered Jourdan Saunders, a relative newcomer to the slave trade based in Warrenton, Virginia.

Isaac Franklin purchased seven slaves from Saunders, allowed him to live at his office, and hired him as a purchasing agent, expanding the company's geographical reach into northern Virginia and greatly profiting both parties.

Isaac Franklin was very skilled at managing the circulation of debt and paper.

Isaac Franklin returned to his plantation in Tennessee during the summers.

Isaac Franklin quickly sold her to a friend in Louisville in order to avoid scandal.

Isaac Franklin took a dim view on romantic relationships with slaves, mocking Ballard for freeing two enslaved women he had children with.

Isaac and James Franklin sold a large number of slaves in the weeks prior to its ban taking effect, selling 240 people in the month between the ban's passage and implementation.

Isaac Franklin unsuccessfully petitioned to change his main address to New Orleans in order to continue trading.

Isaac Franklin intended to sell slaves to buyers from an invoice mailed to New Orleans, and forge receipts to claim such sales were made in Virginia.

Isaac Franklin was prevented from simply selling to Louisiana planters in Mississippi, as the law had banned imports of slaves by residents from neighboring states.

In December 1831, Isaac Franklin was sued by Auguste Rieffel, the owner of a New Orleans livery stable, after he failed to provide Rieffel a cut of sales promised in exchange for directing interested buyers to him.

Isaac Franklin abandoned further efforts of fraudulent trade in Louisiana, shifting its primary sales operations in the deep south to Natchez.

Early 1832 was a particularly difficult period for the company, and Isaac Franklin directed Ballard to borrow from northern banks in order to maintain cash flow until buyers in New Orleans were able to repay their debts.

Isaac Franklin considered retirement, and transferred many business responsibilities to James Isaac Franklin.

Isaac Franklin began to spend significant effort to improve his land holdings in Tennessee.

Armfield and Ballard attempted to purchase larger numbers of slaves in order to repay debts, but Isaac Franklin reported that sales at Natchez were "very dull".

Political struggles over the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States further destabilized markets, and Isaac Franklin was unable to collect on bills until fall.

Isaac Franklin caught up to the coffle south of Nashville, by which time many other slaves had died.

Massive numbers of the enslaved died from the disease, leading Isaac Franklin to throw the corpses into nearby creeks and gullies and partially bury them.

Isaac Franklin wrote in humor to Ballard that "the way we send out dead Negroes at night and keep dark is a sin to Crocket".

Isaac Franklin expressed irritation at Armfield's large and expensive shipment, describing the survivors as "little slim assed girls and boys" who "cannot be sold for a profit".

Isaac Franklin blamed the burials on his hired overseer, Samuel Johnson, who had died of cholera the previous week.

Isaac Franklin sold his property in the city and moved operations a mile east to what would become the Forks of the Road slave market.

Isaac Franklin was able to resume sales as the pandemic lifted, writing to Ballard that sales had "been at fare prices" and that he "will not give up the ship".

Isaac Franklin began preparing to retire from the business, promoting his nephews James Isaac Franklin and James Purvis to company partners.

Isaac Franklin cautioned Ballard against further partnership expansion, due to economic worries related to lowering international cotton prices and increased competition in the lower Mississippi.

Isaac Franklin was largely unable to find buyers in New Orleans, and slave prices had greatly declined.

Isaac Franklin believed that snowfall and freezing rain created the possibility of a sugarcane crop failure, resulting in a slave supply glut due to mass sales by planters seeking to recuperate their losses.

Isaac Franklin ordered Ballard to lower purchase volume, and refocused the company towards collecting outstanding bills, intending to sell slaves on long-term credit when markets improved.

Isaac Franklin was able to sell just over a hundred slaves in New Orleans from January to May 1834, one third of what was sold three years prior.

Isaac Franklin was able to cash debt owed, resume cash sales in New Orleans, and continue shipments of purchased slaves from the Chesapeake.

Isaac Franklin began to wind down some operations, discontinuing many of its partnerships.

In November 1836, the Isaac Franklin shipped the company's final and largest shipment, with 254 enslaved people shipped from Alexandria to New Orleans, including one who died on board.

Isaac Franklin sold the Isaac Franklin and their Alexandria offices to agent George Kephart, while renting the Forks of the Road facility to other slave traders.

Isaac Franklin continued pursuing debts owed by slaveholders for several years afterwards through various means.

One story given involved Isaac Franklin, after earning the good favor of senator Henry Clay at a White House dinner, selling him Henderson, who then ran away and rejoined Isaac Franklin the following week.

The Mississippi Free Trader published a column defending Isaac Franklin and denouncing the story, featuring comments from Clay and Andrew Jackson disputing Henderson's claims and reaffirming Isaac Franklin's character.

The slave population steadily grew, prompting Isaac Franklin to build more slave housing.

In May 1835, Isaac Franklin purchased a half-stake in a 7,767-acre property in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, divided among the three plantations of Bellevue, Killarney, and Lochlomond.

In exchange for a large cash payment, Isaac Franklin received a coequal share of the plantations' profit without needing to administrate or manage the properties.

Isaac Franklin lambasted Routh's management and finances, describing him as incompetent.

Isaac Franklin carved three additional plantations out of a wide swath of his undeveloped land, naming them Panola, Loango, and Angola.

Isaac Franklin built extensive housing, cisterns, and storehouses on his plantations, alongside a levee along a nearby bayou.

Sickness and poor health was endemic among the plantations' slaves, leading Isaac Franklin to construct a hospital and incur large medical bills.

Isaac Franklin unsuccessfully attempted to sell the properties to Armfield following a reunion in 1844.

Isaac Franklin began a relationship with Adelicia Hayes, nearly thirty years his junior, the daughter of a wealthy Tennessee planter and minister.

On July 2,1839, Isaac Franklin married Hayes at her family's Rokeby Plantation.

Isaac Franklin set aside a portion of his estate for the purchase of 190 slaves for his West Feliciana properties, housed by the construction of three additional "clusters of houses".

Armfield spent several years executing Isaac Franklin's estate, including some management of his plantations.

Isaac Franklin's intended philanthropy prompted praise from various newspapers across the country.

New-York Tribune editor Horace Greeley published a favorable eulogy of Isaac Franklin, later retracting it upon realizing his past as a slave trader.

Various papers commemorated Isaac Franklin, describing his career and past in highly euphemistic terms.

Eulogies of Isaac Franklin were lavish and elaborate, describing him as a "worthy Christian", and an equal to the "[heroes] of early Greece and Rome".