York Civil War Roundtable

February 19 – Robert Colby – “An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South.”

This is an online Zoom program only.  If you have any difficulty registering, please contact Nicole Smith at nsmith@yorkhistorycenter.org. 

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Between Fort Sumter and Appomattox, Confederates bought and sold thousands of men, women, and children through a persistence trade in enslaved people. They did so for a multitude of reasons: to adapt to the conflict, to invest in their desired slaveholding future, and to fend off the onset of emancipation. These transactions had profound impacts on the enslaved, their lives and families, and the ways in which they pursued—or did not pursue—freedom during the war. The surviving traffic in humanity thus shaped the experience of the Civil War for all inhabitants of the wartime South.

Robert Colby is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mississippi, where he teaches courses on many aspects of American history, including the Civil War era, the Constitutional Convention, and slavery and emancipation. His first book, An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South, was published in 2024 by Oxford University Press.

Did you miss a program?  Please check the York County History Center YouTube channel for a program recording.

Founded as the White Rose Civil War Round Table, the York CWRT holds monthly meetings the third Wednesday of every month except December at 7:00 p.m. at the York County History Center now at 121 N. Pershing Ave. in York, Pennsylvania. There is free parking behind the building. Each meeting features a guest speaker talking about a Civil War topic of local or national interest. Meetings are FREE and open to the public.

The York Civil War Round Table is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote, interpret, preserve, and protect the Civil War heritage of York County, Pennsylvania, through the education and exchange of information with its members and the general public. Membership is free and open to anyone interested in learning more about the American Civil War. For upcoming programs, please visit the Cannonball webpage http://www.yorkblog.com/cannonball/york-cwrt/.