Editing Nathan Bedford Forrest (section)

== Slave trading ==
[[File:Slave trade in the Memphis, Tennessee, City Directory, 1855 03 (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Forrest & Maples]] advertisement in the Memphis city directory]]
[[File:Business card advertising Forrest, Jones & Co. as "Dealers in Slaves" 01.jpg|thumb|Reverse side of card advertising Forrest, Jones & Co. with handwritten note "sold Madison to Forrest"<ref>{{cite web |title=Business card advertising Forrest, Jones & Co. as 'Dealers in Slaves' |date=1859–1860 |at=William Hicks Jackson (1834–1903) Papers, 1766–1978, I-K-6, Box 1, Folder 10, 41940 |work=Tennessee State Library and Archives |publisher=Tennessee Virtual Archive |url-status=live |url=https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15138coll18/id/1072 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240509165041/https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15138coll18/id/1072 |archive-date=May 9, 2024 |access-date=2023-12-07}}</ref> (Tennessee Virtual Archive)]]
Nathan Bedford Forrest{{mdash}}disparaged by [[Parson Brownlow]] in 1864 as a "sin-hardened negro trader, and livery stable man of Memphis"{{mdash}}was a notable [[Slave trade in the United States|slave trader of the United States]] from 1851 to 1860. Forrest was considered one of the "big four"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mooney |first=Chase C. |title=Slavery in Tennessee |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=1957 |isbn=978-0-8371-5522-7 |location=Bloomington |pages=50 |via=[[HathiTrust]] |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005995115 |access-date=July 16, 2023 |archive-date=August 16, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230816205104/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005995115 |url-status=live }}</ref> "phenomenally large" traders of Memphis, which was the "first-class market" for slave trading in Tennessee.{{sfn|Bancroft|2023|page=249}} He is believed to have sold thousands of slaves during his career and had profits of hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1850s currency.<ref name="Huebner2023">{{Cite journal |last=Huebner |first=Timothy S. | author-link=Timothy S. Huebner |date=March 2023 |title=Taking Profits, Making Myths: The Slave Trading Career of Nathan Bedford Forrest |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/879775 |journal=Civil War History |language=en |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=42–75 |doi=10.1353/cwh.2023.0009 |s2cid=256599213 |issn=1533-6271}}</ref> Primarily based in Memphis, he was able to open a second storefront in Vicksburg in 1858.<ref name="Huebner2023" /> During the American Civil War, Forrest cited his business experience in a written request for an independent command: "I have resided on the Mississippi for over twenty years, was for many years engaged in buying and selling negroes, and know the country perfectly well between Memphis and Vicksburg, and also am well acquainted with all the prominent [[Planter class|planters]] in that region, as well as above Memphis."<ref name="Huebner2023" />

After initially working as an independent slave trader, he was first in partnership with Seaborne S. Jones, second in partnership with [[Byrd Hill]] (a more experienced manager of [[negro mart]]s), third in partnership with [[Josiah Maples]], then again a sole proprietor, and finally reunited with Jones.<ref name="Huebner2023" />

Beginning in the Forrest & Maples era, his business was headquartered at [[Forrest's jail|87 Adams Street]] in Memphis, where several other slave traders had their [[slave pen]]s and auction yards, thus making the area an efficient [[business cluster]].<ref name="Huebner2023" /> After the war, a woman named Nellie Harbold placed a [[Family reunification ads after emancipation|family reunification ad]] hoping to find her children, Lydia, Miley A., and Samuel Tirley, all of whom had been sold to separate buyers out of "the yard of Forrest the Trader" in Memphis in 1854.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nellie Harbold looking for her children Lydia, Miley A., and Samuel Tirley · Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery |url=https://informationwanted.org/items/show/422 |access-date=2024-12-02 |website=informationwanted.org}}</ref> Forrest was traditionally said to have been trained by the principals of [[Bolton, Dickens & Co.]], a multimillion-dollar operation that traded in a dozen Southern cities, but recent research suggests this may be apocryphal.<ref name="Huebner2023" /> After the completion of the [[Memphis and Charleston Railroad]] in 1857, Forrest began moving slaves by rail from [[South Carolina]], including a carpenter named Richard and a man named Bent, both of whom promptly ran away from their new owners in Tennessee.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carey |first=Bill |title=Runaways, Coffles and Fancy Girls: A History of Slavery in Tennessee |publisher=Clearbrook Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-9725680-4-3 |location=Nashville, Tennessee |pages=134–135 |language=en-us |lccn=2018903570 |oclc=1045068878}}</ref> In 1859, media coverage of Forrest's business spotlighted a particular product, an enslaved girl said to be the daughter of [[Frederick Douglass]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Phillips |first=Betsy |date=February 25, 2016 |title=Nathan Bedford Forrest and Douglass' Daughter |url=https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/nathan-bedford-forrest-and-douglass-daughter/article_3eac4a2c-d44d-53f7-b7e5-51a3c43ac911.html |access-date=July 13, 2023 |website=Nashville Scene |language=en |archive-date=July 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230713181954/https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/nathan-bedford-forrest-and-douglass-daughter/article_3eac4a2c-d44d-53f7-b7e5-51a3c43ac911.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="HomeJournal1859">{{Cite news |date=January 20, 1859 |title=Fred Douglass' Daughter for Sale |pages=1 |work=The Home Journal |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-home-journal-fred-douglass-daughter/128157561/ |access-date=July 13, 2023 |archive-date=July 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230713190539/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-home-journal-fred-douglass-daughter/128157561/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Historian [[Tim Huebner]] asserts this was likely Anna Marie Bailey, a niece of Douglass.<ref name="Huebner2023" />

{{Blockquote|text=Among the servants offered for sale by a Mr. Forrest of Memphis, Tenn., is a girl who is known to be the daughter of the notorious Fred Douglass, the "free-nigger" Abolitionist.—She is said to be of the class known among the dealers as a "likely girl," and is a native of North Carolina.—She remembers her "parient" very vividly, having seen him during his last visit to the [[Old North State]]. The ''[[Memphis Avalanche]]'' suggests that as Fred is ample able to make the outlay he should either purchase his own flesh and blood from servitude, or cease his shrieks over an institution which possesses such untold horrors.|author=Winchester (Tenn.) ''Home Journal'', 1859<ref name="HomeJournal1859" />}}
[[File:Forrest's jail in Memphis from Bird's-eye view of the City of Memphis, Tennessee in the 1870s.jpg|thumb|Location of 87 and 89 Adams marked in red (streets have since been renumbered; historical marker is in parking lot behind church)]]
[[File:"The Old Negro Mart" Memphis Commercial Appeal, January 27, 1907.jpg|thumb|The Memphis ''Commercial Appeal'' claimed in 1907 that this had been Forrest's slave pen,<ref>{{Cite news |date=1907-01-27 |title=The Old Negro Mart |pages=48 |work=The Commercial Appeal |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-commercial-appeal-the-old-negro-mart/136081600/ |access-date=2023-12-01 |archive-date=December 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231201185517/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-commercial-appeal-the-old-negro-mart/136081600/ |url-status=live }}</ref> but [[Forrest's jail]] was between Second and Third.{{sfn|Hurst|1993|page=37}} In 1862, the ''Daily Union Appeal'' described Forrest's jail as "a filthy den, and it would make any decent man sick to be there one night."<ref>{{Cite news |date=1862-08-16 |title=Are we to have a new jail? |pages=3 |work=Daily Union Appeal |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-union-appeal-are-we-to-have-a-new/136082314/ |access-date=2023-12-01 |archive-date=December 3, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231203231537/https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-union-appeal-are-we-to-have-a-new/136082314/ |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
In 1859, a federal investigation found that Forrest also sold 37 individuals illegally imported to the United States from Africa on the slave ship ''[[Wanderer (slave ship)|Wanderer]]''.<ref name="Huebner2023" /> Forrest, who advocated for the [[Movement to reopen the transatlantic slave trade|reopening of the transatlantic slave trade]], later told an interviewer that he had been an initial investor in the ''Wanderer'' shipment.<ref name="Huebner2023" /> In January 1860, the ''New York Times'' reported that the Forrest, Jones & Co. negro mart building in Memphis had both collapsed and then caught fire; two people died.<ref name="nytimes1860">{{Cite news |date=January 19, 1860 |title=A Double Catastrophe in Memphis. A NEGRO MARKET AND A NEWSPAPER OFFICE IN RUINS. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1860/01/19/archives/a-double-catastrophe-in-memphis-a-negro-market-and-a-newspaper.html |access-date=May 4, 2023 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=May 4, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504184250/https://www.nytimes.com/1860/01/19/archives/a-double-catastrophe-in-memphis-a-negro-market-and-a-newspaper.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The firm's [[Bill of sale|bills of sale]] for people, "amounting in the aggregate to {{USD|400,000|1860|link=no|about=yes|round=-1}}" were salvaged.<ref name="nytimes1860" /> Forrest had recently moved from 87 Adams to 89 Adams, which allowed him to increase his holding capacity from a maximum of 300 slaves to a maximum of 500.<ref name="Huebner2023" /> Forrest subsequently sold his interest in the business after the building catastrophe and reinvested the profit into [[Plantation complexes in the Southern United States|plantations]].<ref name="Huebner2023" /> A marker was erected at the former site of Forrest's slave mart in downtown Memphis, on land currently owned by [[Calvary Episcopal Church (Memphis, Tennessee)|Calvary Episcopal Church]], and was dedicated on April 4, 2018.<ref name="Huebner2023" />