Slaves as Business Agents

I'm going to attempt to go up to three posts a week for now.

Elizabeth Chika Tippett, of the University of Oregon School of Law, has written a new article available at SSRN, Enslaved Agents.

The article begins with the fact that between 1798 and 1863, in the slave states of the US (and CS), certain slaves would conduct business negotiations and conclude transactions on behalf of their owners. This, as one might expect, sometimes became fodder for litigation when one party to a deal wanted an escape clause, since they could not reasonably have expected a court to hold them to promises made to a chattel. But that argument doesn't seem to have done them any good.

Some of the specific situations Tippett mentions are fascinating. Consider the case of "Robert Gordon, an enslaved man who profitably managed a coal yard, and in exchange was allowed to sell the 'slack' coal on his own behalf, through which he purchased his freedom." So he not only managed the coal and its income stream for his owner, and was allowed to manage some of that coal, and its distinct income stream, for himself.

My mind gets stuck in the novelistic details one would have to know to make a drama out of this. Before he purchased his freedom, did Gordon have to live in slave quarters with his masters other chattel? Or did he have an apartment more suited to a coal mine manager? I imagine Gordon in an office near the mine, which doubled as a home, with a cot and within easy walk of an outhouse.

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