You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

Ben Franklin's World is a production of the Omahaundro Institute.

Hello and welcome to episode 312 of Ben Franklin's World.

The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our

early American past have shaped the present day world we live in.

And I'm your host, Liz Covart.

When we talk about slavery in the slave trade, we often tend to focus on the transatlantic

or international slave trade.

And this is because, you know, within the context of this podcast, that was the slave trade

that dominated in North America during the 17th and 18th centuries.

But by 1808, a different slave trade came to dominate in the young United States.

And this was the domestic or internal slave trade.

Joshua Rothman, an award-winning historian, professor, and author of the book, The Ledger

and the Chain, How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America, leads us on an exploration

of the United States's domestic slave trade and of the lives of three slave traders

who really helped to define this trade.

Now during our exploration, Josh reveals the long history of North America's domestic

or internal slave trade.

How and why the United States Congress passed a ban on the international or transatlantic

slave trade in 1808?

And how the 1808 ban on the international slave trade allowed the domestic slave trade

to grow, develop, and emerge as a profitable business in the 19th century.

...