Tag: The Ledger and the Chain

Rothman Named Finalist for 2022 Harriet Tubman Prize

August 13, 2022

Dr. Joshua Rothman, professor and chair of the Department of History, has been named a finalist for the 2022 Harriet Tubman Prize for his his The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America (Basic Books, 2021). The Ledger and the Chain debunks the notion that slave traders were social pariahs and outcasts, proving instead that they moved among the social and financial elite of both North and South. Rothman shows how Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard […]

Faculty Publications

November 18, 2021

Joshua D. Rothman, The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America (Basic Books, 2021) For the past seven years Dr. Joshua D. Rothman, chair of the Department of History, combed archives across the country, working to craft an illuminating narrative of Isaac Franklin, John Armfield, and Rice Ballard, three business partners who ran the largest slave-trading operation in US history. Rothman’s The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America (Basic Books, 2021) debunks the […]