Transitions

Along the south bank of the James River, attention centers on the brutal experiences of enslaved Africans exported as human cargo, while north of the river the focus turns to the courage and resilience of enslaved Africans in the United States who fought for freedom in episodes such as the Creole Revolt. Across Richmond’s landscape, surviving features recall misery and coercion but also strength and devotion, revealing both the darkest shadows and the noblest aspirations of the human spirit. The history of Shockoe Bottom follows a path of oppression and revolution, sorrow and song, as enslaved men and women were bought, sold, beaten, maimed, and often permanently separated from loved ones. The Reconciliation Statue recognizes Virginia’s role in the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, and Robert Lumpkin’s slave trading jail, the Devil’s Half Acre, has been excavated and studied to illuminate the domestic slave trade. The Richmond Slave Trail traces the history of the trade in enslaved Africans from their homeland to Virginia until 1778 and from Virginia, especially Richmond, to other places in the Americas until 1865. Beginning at the Manchester Docks and connected to Rocketts Landing, major ports in the downriver slave trade, it follows those who remained in Richmond and crossed the James River, often chained together in a coffle, then continues through the city’s slave markets and auction houses to the Reconciliation Statue, Lumpkin’s Slave Jail, Richmond’s African Burial Ground, and the First African Baptist Church, while recalling how free and enslaved black people helped build the capital city through prosperity and peril.

Richmond, Virginia · United States