slaves along with other property, and in each city there were brokers,
buying them to sell again, and handling them on commission."[23]

The position of the broker is indicated in the following typical bill of
sale which was published in Charleston, S. C., in 1795. "Gold Coast
Negroes. On Thursday, the 17th of March instant, will be exposed to
public sale near the exchange ... the remainder of the cargo of negroes
imported in the ship _Success_, Captain John Conner, consisting chiefly
of likely young boys and girls in good health, and having been here
through the winter may be considered in some degree seasoned to the
climate."[24]

Such a bill of sale attracted no more attention at that time than a
similar bill advertising cattle attracts to-day.

During the early colonial days, the slaves were better fed and provided
for than were the indentured servants. They were of greater money value
and, particularly in the later years when slavery became the mainstay of
Southern agriculture, a first class Negro, acclimated, healthy, willing
and trustworthy, was no mean asset.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century slavery began to show itself
unprofitable in the South. The best and most accessible land was
exhausted. Except for the rice plantations of South Carolina and
Georgia, slavery was not paying. The Southern delegates to the
Constitutional Convention, with the exception of the delegates from
these states, were prepared to abolish the slave trade. Some of them
were ready to free their own slaves. Then came the invention of the
cotton gin and the rise of the cotton kingdom. The amount of raw cotton
consumed by England was 13,000 bales in 1781; 572,000 bales in 1820; and
3,366,000 bales in 1860. During that period, the South was almost the
sole source of supply.

The attitude of the South, confronted by this wave of slave prosperity,
underwent a complete change. Her statesmen had consented, between 1808
and 1820, to severe restrictive laws directed towards the slave trade.
After cotton became king, slaves rose rapidly in price; land, once used
and discarded, was again brought under cultivation; cotton-planting
spread rapidly into the South and Southwest; Texas was annexed; the
Mexican War was fought; an agitation was begun for the annexation of
Cuba, and Calhoun (1836) declared that he "ever should regret that this
term (piracy) had been applied" to the slave trade in our laws.[25]

The change of sentiment correspo