Business card advertising Forrest, Jones & Co. as "Dealers in Slaves" Description Located at No. 89 Adams Street, Memphis, Tennessee, the owners of this slave-dealing business included Nathan Bedford Forrest, later a famous Confederate general during the Civil War, and his brother William. The bottom of the business card reads, "They will Board and Sell on Commission, and keep constantly on hand, a good assortment of Virginia, Georgia, and Carolina Negroes for sale." On the reverse of the card is written in pencil, "Sold Madison to Forrest," possibly referring to an enslaved person sold to Forrest by the owner of Belle Meade plantation near Nashville. Four enslaved individuals were killed in this brick building on Jan. 13, 1860 when it collapsed following heavy rains; Forrest, one of Memphis' largest slave dealers and wealthiest men, closed the business soon afterwards. Historical Note On January 14, 1860, Nathan Bedford Forrest placed an advertisement in the Memphis Appeal newspaper, (p. 3), that read: "500 NEGROES WANTED. I WILL PAY MORE THAN ANY OTHER PERSON, for No. 1 NEGROES, suited to the New Orleans market." Forrest's business consisted in buying slaves from owners around Tennessee and nearby states, then bringing them to Memphis to resell for profit to cotton planters from the Deep South. Date 1859-1860 Place Memphis (Tenn.) Collection Name William Hicks Jackson (1834-1903) Papers, 1766-1978 Collection finding aid http://sos.tn.gov/products/tsla/jackson-william-hicks-papers-1766-1978 Accession Number 1979.059 Education Tags 4.58 4.61 5.1 5.15 8.71 8.77 Nathan Bedford Forrest Slavery Growth of the Republic Beloved Subject - LCSH Slavery Owning Institution Tennessee State Library & Archives ID# 41940 Storage Location I-K-6, Box 1, Folder 10 Media Type Cards Copyrights Copyright not evaluated: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/ Ordering Information All images on TeVA are available to download as lower-resolution JPEG files by using the download button on the image page. To order a high-resolution digital reproduction of this item, please see these instructions: http://sos.tn.gov/products/tsla/ordering-images-and-microfilm-digitization. Credit line and copyright information is available here: https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/customizations/global/pages/about.html. IIIF Manifest