Print this story |
E-mail story |
This story has 14 comments Add your own |
iPod friendly | Bookmark this
What is this?
Forks marks 176th anniversary
Published Sunday, April 19, 2009
April 27 marks the 176th anniversary of the city’s ordinance causing enslavement traders to relocate at Forks of the Road April 27, 1833.
A City of Natchez ordinance made it illegal for “Negro traders” to sell Negroes within the corporate limits of the city after April 27, 1833. Thereby, “Negro trading” was concentrated at the Forks of the Road beginning April 27, 1833.
Today, a mile or so east of Natchez’s city center is a land mass historically known as the “Forks of the Road.” These 19th century roads were named Washington Road, Old Courthouse Road and St. Catherine. Washington Road was actually the Natchez Trace extending into Natchez and terminating at the Forks.
In 1834, eyewitness traveler, Joseph Holt Ingraham described the Forks market as follows: “a mile from Natchez we came to a cluster of rough wooden buildings, in the angle of two roads. “This is the slave market,” said my companion, pointing to a building in the rear.” He said they entered “through a wide gate into a narrow court-yard, partially enclosed by low buildings.”
Jim Barnett of Mississippi Department of Archives and History, in his 2003 nomination of the Forks for National Historical Landmark recognition wrote, “The historic intersection, with its familiar Y configuration, remains to mark the location of the once-flourishing slave markets.”
During the trafficking season at Forks of the Road markets ,“coffles” of enslaved people were walked from the upper old south Chesapeake Bay region, Kentucky and Tennessee to the Forks. Those shipped around on the Atlantic Ocean and down and up the Mississippi River highway routes were off loaded at Natchez Under-the-Hill wharfs and walked out to the Forks.
Tens of thousands of enslaved African descendants, who through their spiritual tradition and human motivation, managed to survive these driven-like-cattle passages of sorrow to the Forks.
Once there, they were stored securely in human stockades, holding pens and houses in and about the Forks.
Paths to dreams of status, wealth and empires by investing in “Negro stock” — buying Negroes to make profits, to buy more Negroes, to make more profits — was the capitalization engine driving southern heritage economies and success of the Forks of Road Negro markets. Enslaved persons at the Forks were not exhibited on auction blocks and struck down to the highest bidder, as was the case in the upper south.
Alexandria, Va., based Isaac Franklin and John Armfield Company and Associates were said to be America’s top kingpin enslavement dealers of their time. Franklin developed five plantations in the West Feliciana Parish of Louisiana on which the notorious Angola Prison now stands.
Come visit Natchez or while living here visit the historical Forks of the Road. The Forks will speak to you through interpretive signs Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Inc., erected there and through a kiosk erected by the City of Natchez. You may even feel the ever present spirits of humans soul down the river in America’s domestic slave trade at the Forks.
In your mind’s eye or in person, leave the Forks. Follow the tread of investments in Negroes to extant and no longer existing antebellum homes, families, plantations of cotton and sugar bowls (football), gone with the wind hoop skirts and confederate uniforms around the maypole pageants, edifices, cities and “southern heritage,” that slavery produced.
Look at the people now labeled African Americans. Know their life, presence, humanity, art, music, spirituality, legacies, history, culture and deep-south community development contributions were rites of passage from their African land of origin to the Forks of the Road and other markets all the way back through the European slave forts’ doors of no return in Africa.
A banner has been erected at the Forks to mark the 176th anniversary.
Ser Sesh Ab Heter-C.M. Boxley is coordinator of the Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Inc.
Comments
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on April 19, 2009 at 4:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I never can tell, Ser Sesh, whether you object more to capitalism or to slavery.
If it is capitalism that is your main objection then you should be aware that the alternatives are only a different form of slavery.
If it is slavery that is your main objection, or black slavery more specifically, you can take heart in that a Treasury Bond is just as much a mortgage on modern day people as were the bonds of the days you lament so often. We are all slaves now, it is only that our masters have been relieved of the burden of feeding and sheltering us and allow us to do as we please so long as we are adequately productive.
Posted by graybear (anonymous) on April 19, 2009 at 10:02 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Nice bit of historical information there , Box ! Let's see , that was about 150 years in the past and as we all know , what's done is done. I totally agree that slavery is one of the most vile acts of man's inhumanity to man but you need to get over it , just as do all of the folks with the hoopskirts and maypole thing. Box , ol' boy, why don't you try to do something about bringing your folks on up to the standards of society today, instead of beating a dead horse in the forks of the road ?
Posted by rushinghjr (anonymous) on April 19, 2009 at 12:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hang in their Enk! Maybe some "people" don't understand or just don't want to?
Posted by Natchezbear (anonymous) on April 19, 2009 at 9:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I am no fan of Mr Boxley, quite often I strongly disagree with his views and actions. This time I must say hats off to you Ser Sesh This is a great editorial. Using the word "Negro " correctly, telling the story with first hand accounts and inviting tourist (of any race)to come and see what slavery was, the treasures it created and not doing so in a one sided angry display. I hope the progress of "The Forks in the Road" project can move forward in this fashion, if so I believe it will be a great addition to the whole Natchez story and be accepted by all parties concerned. Thank you Sir ,you have gained this old Bears respect.
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on April 20, 2009 at 11:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If it is true that slavery is immoral, unethical, and inhumane there must be some reason it is these things.
What are these reasons, unclered, in your mind? Or do you just say slavery is evil because you have been told that by someone else?
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on April 21, 2009 at 12:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't think you really believe slavery is immoral unclered because you can't give any specific reasons it is.
Slavery is not necessarily inhumane. What if the slaveowner treated the slaves well, fed them well, clothed them, gave them healthcare, educated them, allowed them some time to work for themselves, gave them whatever freedoms did not intefere with the plantation's bottom line? What would be wrong with a system like that? It might actually be better than the alternative for a great many people who lack the skills or discipline to order their own lives.
Posted by tenzing (anonymous) on April 22, 2009 at 6:46 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Enkikur, although you may lack the skills or discipline to order your own life, I dare say you would resist the notion that slavery would help you out. Which begs the question: who can rightly determine who would and would not be better off free?
Only in the Natchez Democrat and white supremacist hate sites would such an utterly ridiculous discussion take place. You should be ashamed.
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on April 23, 2009 at 2:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If you folks would quit looking for racists and think for a moment, you might realize something.
I should be ashamed of nothing, unless you are, because I agree that I do resist the notion that slavery would help me out. I am merely trying to get someone to say what specifically it is about slavery that makes it wrong. What does a slave not have that a free person does have? What specifically, not these vague generalities that people deploy to show how moral they are.
Posted by tenzing (anonymous) on April 23, 2009 at 9:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Your attempt at Socratic dialogue is laughable and, in this case, completely useless. But okay, keep trying to be the wise old sage of the Democrat's message boards - because that's all this is. At least choose a better topic for your grandstanding.
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on April 23, 2009 at 11:11 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I see you already know I am right in my assertions and are afraid to face a few basic truths about freedom.
Posted by tenzing (anonymous) on April 23, 2009 at 11:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
No, I'm just bored out of my skull at your line of reasoning. Although you seemed to have really impressed yourself, so: job well done!
Posted by EnKiKur (Marty Ellerbe) on April 23, 2009 at 11:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Congratulate yourself as well, you've shown everyone you can parrot the popular view and argue on the level of a third grader. A well done to you for participating in the national spit-ball war.
If you were bored you wouldn't be responding. I still think you are just afraid to look closely at the issue. If you would maybe I would gain something from your point of view and maybe you would gains something from mine. You won't though because you are unsure of your position and fear exposing it.
Posted by priya (anonymous) on April 23, 2009 at 9:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ive read over EnKiKur statement about slave owners treating the slaves well.
Im not a slave and thought i was a Free person, but now Im thinking....
I work for someone else!
Im fed, clothed, educated and just received healthcare this last year after working years!
now Im thinking a real Free Person dont have to work and still gets the same liberties im working hard to get.
So now Im thinking the only true Free Person is the Free people on welfare that dont work.
The rest of the working class of Free People are just slaves in a different form than years back.
Goes to collect welfare tomorrow!!!!!
Posted by obamayamama (anonymous) on May 5, 2009 at 2:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
good point priya.. but at least we are free.
Post a comment (Terms of Use Policy)
(Requires free registration.)