Special to The Mississippi Monitor
Robert K.D. Colby, Ph.D, Associate Director of the Center for Civil War Research and an Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Mississippi.
The domestic slave trade did not end when the Civil War began, and a Natchez Historical Society program Sept. 22 will examine how slave trading continued across the South during the conflict and what it reveals about life, economics and the struggle for freedom during the war.
Historian and author Robert K.D. Colby, Ph.D., will present the program, An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South, as part of the Grace MacNeil Lecture Program.
Colby’s presentation is based on his book of the same name, which explores the survival of the domestic slave trade during the Civil War. The book uses wartime slave commerce to examine the endurance of Confederate nationalism, the economic and social life of the South and the contested onset of African American freedom.
The evening will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a social meet-and-greet and refreshments at 108 South Commerce St. The program will follow at 6 p.m.
The Natchez Historical Society’s programs are free and open to the public.
The lecture will provide attendees with an opportunity to explore an often-overlooked aspect of the Civil War and gain a deeper understanding of how the institution of slavery and the domestic slave trade continued to affect the South during a period of profound political and social upheaval.