Review (PDF)

Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade In American Life

Originating with the birth of the nation itself, in many respects, the story of the domestic slave trade is also the story of the early United States. While an external traffic in slaves had always been present, following the American Revolution this was replaced by a far more vibrant internal trade. Most importantly, an interregional commerce in slaves developed that turned human property into one of the most valuable forms of investment in the country, second only to land. In fact, this form of property became so valuable that when threatened with its ultimate extinction in 1860, southern slave owners believed they had little alternative but to leave the Union. Therefore, while the interregional trade produced great wealth for many people, and the nation, it also helped to tear the country apart. The domestic slave trade likewise played a fundamental role in antebellum American society. Led by professional traders, who greatly resembled northern entrepreneurs, this traffic was a central component in the market revolution of the early nineteenth century. In addition, the development of an extensive local trade meant that the domestic trade, in all its configurations, was a prominent feature in southern life. Yet, this indispensable part of the slave system also raised many troubling questions. For those outside the South, it affected their impression of both the region and the new nation. For slaveholders, it proved to be the most difficult part of their institution to defend. And for those who found themselves commodities in this trade, it was something that needed to be resisted at all costs. Carry Me Back restores the domestic slave trade to the prominent place that it deserves in early American history, exposing the many complexities of southern slavery and antebellum American life.

Paperback: 416 pages

Publisher: Oxford University Press (August 31, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0195310195

ISBN-13: 978-0195310191

Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 1.1 x 6.1 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #979,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #434 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Commerce #447 in Books > History > World > Slavery & Emancipation #640 in Books > History > Americas > United States > Civil War > Abolition

A decent historical read though he fails to adequately tie the Northern finances to the domestic slave trade. Deyle claims to convince the reader of the significance of the domestic slave trade on America as a whole, but spends most of the book beating up the same old dead Southerners while only touching on the North. Most Civil War readers like to use the South as a pinata and ignore the rest of the country which gets tiresome. That being said, the overall scholarship of the book was excellent and he makes some original and interesting arguments.

This book is so detailed and repetitious until it's disgusting. Due to it repetitious nature, all the pertinent information contained in this book (consisting of about 400 pages) could easily fit into a book half that size with room left over. Plus, it's loaded with numerous examples of the author's personal opinions regarding Negro slavery in America. With the author repeatedly making prejudiced opinions of American slavery as if they were founded on historical facts. For instance, the author states US slavery was the worse form of human slavery ever practiced in any part of the world. A statement and accusation that anyone with an elemental knowledge of history relating to human slavery (including African slavery) would recognize as ridiculous statements, not based on reality. The truth of the matter is that human slavery, as it was practiced in the southeastern United States, is recognized by most historians and experts on the subject that it was one of the mildest and most humane forms of slavery ever practiced anywhere in the world, including Africa where far more brutal forms of slavery have been the norm for many centuries, right up to the present time. And of course the author never acknowledges the fact that virtually every black slave sold to western slave traders on the east coast of African coast, where already living in slavery, with a great majority of them being born into slavery for generations. .

This is an excellent coverage of the the extensive internal slave trade in the American south. It's an "academic" book but accessible to the general reader. Well written without academic pretension prose but with high quality research.

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