Franklin and Armfield Slave Office (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

Franklin and Armfield Slave Office
(1315 Duke Street)

Isaac Franklin and John Armfield leased this brick building with access to the wharves and docks in 1828 as a holding pen for enslaved people being shipped from Northern Virginia to Louisiana. They purchased the building and three lots in 1832. From this location Armfield bought bondspeople at low prices and shipped them south to his partner Franklin in Natchez, Mississippi and New Orleans, Louisiana, to be sold at higher prices. By the 1830s, they often sold 1,000 people annually, operating as one of the largest slave-trading companies in the United States until 1836. Slave traders continuously owned the property until 1861.

Erected 2005 by Department of Historic Resources. (Marker Number E-131.)


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Here follows an excerpt from the Virginia Foundation For the Humanities, African American Heritage Program:

Franklin and Armfield and the U.S. Internal Slave Trade
... Slaves awaiting shipment to markets in New Orleans and Natchez were imprisoned in walled pens behind the house. At night they slept in a two-story rear wing with grated doors and windows. ...

For enslaved Blacks in Virginia, there were few fates worse than Duke Street. “Louisiana was considered by slaves a place of slaughter,” wrote emancipated slave Jacob Stroyer. With the same sentiment, Rev. Josiah Henson, thought to be the basis for Harriet Beecher Stowes’ fictional Uncle Tom, wrote in his autobiography that the fear of being sold south filled slaves of the upper South with “perpetual dread.” But selling slaves south filled the pockets of slave traders with perpetual profits. ... “We will give Cash for one hundred likely YOUNG NEGROES,” read one Franklin and Armfield ad in the Alexandria Gazette in 1828. “Persons who wish to sell, would do well to give us a call, as the negroes are wanted immediately. We will give more than any other purchasers that are in the market or may hereafter come into the market.”

In mid- to late summer, slave drivers armed with guns and whips, marched a chained and manacled coffle of slaves through Tennessee to the Forks of the Road slave market in Natchez. ... Every month from October to May, the firm also shipped slaves from Alexandria to New Orleans on their fleet of steamboats and ships, including one named for partner Isaac Franklin. ...

At the firm’s peak in the 1830’s it sold between 1,000 and 1,200 slaves a year, making it a key player in the interstate slave commerce that transported enslaved Blacks from Upper South hubs in Baltimore, the District of Columbia (of which Alexandria was a component until 1846), Richmond, Norfolk, Nashville and St. Louis to markets in Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Natchez, and New Orleans.

Between 1820 and 1860 about 650,000 people were sold across state lines (twice as many as were traded locally); and the business generated by Franklin and Armfield accounts for Washington, D.C./Alexandria's, reputation as the foremost slave trading center of the era....

In 1846 the Duke Street property was purchased by a Franklin & Armfield agent, George Kephart, and in 1858 to a third slave trading firm, Price, Birch, and Co. The Adamesque structure, built in 1812 for General Andrew Young, was used to jail Union army deserters and house freed “contraband” Blacks after Alexandria fell to Union troops in 1861. In 1863 the building provided the first meeting place for Shiloh Baptist Church, founded by former slaves housed there. The slave pens were demolished in the 1870s.


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Here follows an excerpt about the building from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Franklin and Armfield Office, which houses the Freedom House Museum, is a historic commercial building in Alexandria, Virginia (until 1846, the District of Columbia). Built c. 1810–1820, it was first used as a private residence before being converted to the offices of the largest slave trading firm in the United States, started in 1828 by Isaac Franklin and John Armfield. Another source, using ship manifests (lists of slaves) in the National Archives, gives the number as "at least 5,000".

The 1315 Duke Street building is located just west of Alexandria's Old Town, on the north side of Duke Street between South West and South Payne streets. It is a three-story brick building, topped by a mansard roof and resting on a brick foundation. Its front facade is laid in Flemish bond, while the sides and rear are laid in common bond. It has Federal-period styling, with windows and the entrance door set in segmented, arch openings, with gabled dormers at the roof level.

The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, and has also been designated a Virginia Historic Landmark. The building was formerly owned by the Northern Virginia Urban League which operated it as a museum, with exhibits about the slave trading firm and the life of a slave.

The City of Alexandria purchased the building in March of 2020 and reopened it as a museum in June of 2022.

History
The building was constructed as a residence in the 1810s by Robert Young, a brigadier general in the District of Columbia Militia. Due to financial reverses, Young was soon afterward forced to sell the house.

Franklin & Armfield:
The building was purchased in 1828 by Isaac Franklin and his intimate friend and nephew-by-marriage John Armfield, who established it as their Washington-area office, and the residence of Armfield.

The building was already recognized as Franklin & Armfield's slave pen in September 1829, when Benjamin Lundy annotated this poem in Genius of Universal Emancipation with a description of the brig Comet, possibly the same coastwise slave ship that later landed in the British West Indies, resulting in the freedom of the prisoners on board.

"Cash in Market. The subscribers having leased for a term of years the large three story brick house on Duke Street, in the town of Alexandria, D.C. formerly occupied by Gen. Young, we wish to purchase one hundred and fifty likely young negroes of both sexes, between the ages of 8 and 25 years. Persons who wish to sell will do well to give us a call, as we are determined to give more than any other purchasers that are in market, or that may hereafter come into market. Any letters addressed to the subscribers through the Post Office at Alexandria, will be promptly attended to. For information, enquire at the above described house, as we can at all times be found there. -- FRANKLIN & ARMFIELD"
— advertisement in the Alexandria Phoenix Gazette, May 17, 1828

The property then extended further east, and they added structures for holding and trading in slaves. They also provided, for 25¢ a day, housing in their jail for slaveowners visiting Washington. The two-story extension to the rear of this house was part of the slave-holding facilities, which included high walls, and interior chambers that featured prison-like grated doors and windows.

The firm also commissioned three slave ships for use as packets. One of their ads describing these was reprinted in William I. Bowditch's Slavery and the Constitution (1849): "ALEXANDRIA AND NEW ORLEANS PACKETS. — Brig Tribune, Samuel C. Bush, master, will sail as above on the 1st January; brig Isaac Franklin, William Smith, master, on the 15th January; brig Uncas, Nathaniel Boush, master, on the 1st February. They will continue to leave this port on the 1st and 15th of each month, throughout the shipping season. Servants that are intended to be shipped will at any time be received for safe keeping at twenty-five cents a day. JOHN ARMFIELD, Alexandria."

Circa 1833–34, Franklin & Armfield had trading agents in at least five cities:
R. C. Ballard & Co., Richmond, Va.
J. M. Saunders & Co., Warrenton, Va.
George Kephart & Co., Fredericktown, Md.
James F. Purvis & Co., Baltimore
Thomas M. Jones, Easton, Eastern Shore, Md.

Other agents associated with Franklin & Armfield included:
John Ware, Port Tobacco, Md.
William Hooper, Annapolis, Maryland
A. Grimm, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Franklin left the business, starting in 1835, and Armfield sold the property to their former trading agent George Kephart in 1836.

Franklin and Armfield sold more enslaved people, separated more families, and made more money from the trade than almost anyone else in the United States. They amassed a fortune equaling billions in today's dollars (2021) and were two of the nation's richest men. Franklin sold slaves from an office in Natchez, Mississippi, with branch offices in New Orleans, St. Francisville, and Vidalia, Louisiana. His nephew Armfield handled the supply, sending agents door-to-door in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware looking for enslaved people their owners might like to sell, and arranging transportation.

Maryland and Virginia had surpluses of slaves and spoke of slaves as an export, like livestock. As portrayed in Uncle Tom's Cabin, there was a vast, internal forced migration of enslaved people from the Upper South to the Lower South, and Franklin and Armfield were central to that business. "In surviving correspondence, they actually brag about raping enslaved people who they’ve been processing through the firm."

"Price Birch & Co Dealers in Slaves", Alexandria, Virginia,
From 1858, the building was occupied by Price, Birch & Co. an American slave trading company founded in 1858 by George Kephart, William Birch, J. C. Cook, and Charles M. Price.

Price, Birch & Co. ceased business in 1861. Arriving at the Duke street office of the company on May 14, 1861, the Union Army discovered that "The firm had fled, and taken with them all but one of the humans that they sold as slaves — an old man, chained to the middle of the floor by the leg." Union forces then took possession of the building until February 2, 1866, using it as a military prison. Late in the war, it was used as L'Ouverture Hospital for black soldiers, and as housing for contrabands.

Use after the Civil War
After the war, the building's outlying slave pens, of which there are photographs, were torn down. The bricks may have been reused in the construction of the adjacent townhouses. After serving a variety of other uses, the main building is now used for Freedom House Museum, with exhibits devoted to the slave trade. The second floor houses the offices of the Northern Virginia Urban League.

In 2005, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources erected the following marker in front of the building:

Franklin and Armfield Slave Office (1315 Duke Street)
Isaac Franklin and John Armfield leased this brick building with access to the wharves and docks in 1828 as a holding pen for enslaved people being shipped from northern Virginia to Louisiana. They purchased the building and three lots in 1832. From this location Armfield bought bondspeople at low prices and shipped them south to his partner Franklin, in Natchez, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana, to be sold at higher prices. By the 1830s they often sold 1,000 people annually, operating as one of the largest slave-trading companies in the United States until 1836. Slave traders continually owned the property until 1861.

Freedom House Museum
The Northern Virginia Urban League purchased the building in the 1990s and installed an exhibit in the basement. The rest of the building was used for offices and classroom space.

The Office of Historic Alexandria partnered with the Northern Virginia Urban League in February of 2018 in an effort to maintain and interpret the building. The Urban League received $50,000 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund that same year.

The City of Alexandria purchased the building from the Urban League in March of 2020.

The Freedom House Museum reopened in June of 2022. It houses three exhibits that tell the story of the Black experience in Alexandria and the United States.


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Here follows an excerpt from the City of Alexandria website about the Freedom House Museum:

City of Alexandria to Purchase Freedom House to Preserve Historic Museum
For Immediate Release: January 6, 2020

The City of Alexandria and the Northern Virginia Urban League (NVUL) reached an agreement on December 31 for the City to purchase the Freedom House Museum in order to preserve and interpret this National Historic Landmark for future generations. The building, located at 1315 Duke Street, was once part of the headquarters for the largest domestic slave trading firm in the United States. From 1828 to 1861, five successive firms forced as many as 50,000 enslaved adults and children from the Chesapeake Bay area to the slave markets in Natchez, Miss., and New Orleans by foot or ship.

“Preserving sites like Freedom House and making them accessible to the public are vital parts of the effort to connect the stories of our past to our present day conversation about race and equity, and ensure we are telling a broader, more candid account of Alexandria and our nation’s history,” said Mayor Justin Wilson. “The City plans to enlist partners to help us restore the building and expand the exhibits to tell the story of the domestic slave trade and those who were enslaved.”

The City and NVUL have worked together for the past two years to ensure that Freedom House stays open to the public. The City's Office of Historic Alexandria began operating the museum in February 2019, while the property remained under the ownership of NVUL.

“The Northern Virginia Urban League is pleased to reach this agreement with the City to place Freedom House in the public trust and ensure its important story will continue to be told,” said Diane McLaughlin, chair of the board of directors of NVUL. “The League will continue to focus on its primary mission to enable minorities and other disadvantaged communities to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.”

On December 17, Governor Ralph Northam recommended state funding of $2.44 million for Freedom House as part of his annual budget proposal to the Virginia General Assembly. The funds would be used to renovate and restore the existing building and build out the content of an expanded museum on the first and second floors. The current exhibit is in the basement of the museum.

The City envisions a partnership with the Commonwealth, as well with private grantors and donors who may wish to help fund elements of the restoration and museum expansion. Members of the community are encouraged to contribute to an account administered by the ACT for Alexandria community foundation, which will be used to supplement public funds for building restoration and museum development.

The $1.8 million purchase includes land, a three- and four-story, 9,810 square-foot building constructed primarily in the 1800s, all museum exhibits and furnishings, and an adjacent 1,648 square-foot parking lot. The building has been the home of the NVUL since 1996, and the City will continue to provide NVUL with office space in the building for five years. The purchase is subject to approval by the Planning Commission and City Council in February.

Freedom House is currently open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m.