Interregional Slave Trade

The interregional slave trade was the trade of slaves within the United States that reallocated slaves across states during the antebellum period. The direction of this trade occurred primarily from states of the Old South (Georgia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina, and the District of Columbia) to states of the Deep South and the West Territories (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida). Transactions in the interregional slave market were driven primarily by interregional differences in the marginal productivity of labor, which were given by the relative advantage between climates for the production of staple goods. This disparity in productivity created arbitrage opportunities for traders to exploit and ultimately facilitated regional specialization in labor production. Due to a lack of data, particularly with regard to slave prices, land values, and export totals for slaves, the true effects of the interregional slave trade on both the economy of the Old South and general migration patterns of slaves into southwestward territories remain uncertain and have served as points of contention among economic historians.