{{Short description|American slave trader (1797–1871)}} {{Use American English|date=June 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = John Armfield | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1797 | birth_place = [[North Carolina]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1871|09|20|1797}} | death_place = [[Beersheba Springs, Tennessee]], U.S. | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | other_names = | known_for = | education = | employer = | occupation = Slave trader | title = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | spouse = {{Marriage|Martha Franklin|1831}} | children = | parents = | relatives = }} '''John Armfield''' (1797 – September 20, 1871) was an American [[slave trader]]. He was the co-founder of [[Franklin & Armfield]], "the largest slave trading firm" in the United States.<ref name="thetroubledlegacy"/> He was also the developer of [[Beersheba Springs]], [[Tennessee]], and a co-founder of [[Sewanee: The University of the South]].
==Early life== John Armfield was born in 1797 in North Carolina to Quaker parents.<ref name="howelljohnarmfield">{{cite journal|last1=Howell|first1=Isabel|title=John Armfield, Slave-trader|journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly|date=March 1943|volume=2|issue=1|pages=3–29|jstor=42620772}}</ref> He was of English descent.<ref name="howelljohnarmfield"/> [[File:Franklin-armfield-office.JPG|thumb|right|The [[Franklin and Armfield Office]] in Alexandria, Virginia.]]
==Career== {{Main|Franklin and Armfield Office}} Armfield took up slave trading in the 1820s, more than a decade after the Atlantic slave trade had been prohibited by the United States. The domestic slave trade had been growing rapidly. Armfield sold a slave in [[Natchez, Mississippi]], in 1827.<ref name="howelljohnarmfield"/>
In 1828, Armfield and his uncle by marriage, [[Isaac Franklin]], formed the partnership of Franklin & Armfield to buy slaves in the Upper South: the mid-Atlantic states (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia), where agriculture was changing and many planters had surplus slaves, and sell them in the newly opened territories of the [[Deep South]].<ref name="thetroubledlegacy">{{cite journal|last1=Gudmestad|first1=Robert H.|title=The Troubled Legacy of Isaac Franklin: The Enterprise of Slave Trading|journal=Tennessee Historical Quarterly|date=Fall 2003|volume=62|issue=3|pages=193–217|jstor=42627764}}</ref>
In this period, many whites were moving into the Southeast and the federal government began [[Indian Removal]]. The cotton gin had made short-staple cotton profitable and there was strong demand for enslaved African Americans in the domestic slave trade as workers for clearing and development of new plantations throughout this territory.
They were enormously successful and became two of the wealthiest men in the country. Franklin and Armfield were abusive to enslaved African Americans, joking with each other in letters in coded language about the young enslaved women they were raping.<ref name=wapo>{{cite news |first=Hannah |last=Natanson |title= They were once America's cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names?|newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |date= 14 Sep 2019 |url= https://beta.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/14/they-were-once-americas-cruelest-richest-slave-traders-why-does-no-one-know-their-names/ |access-date=January 26, 2022}}</ref> Having gained enormous wealth, the two men dissolved the partnership in 1835 and sold the business to one of their agents, [[George Kephart]].
Armfield retired to [[Middle Tennessee]] in 1835.{{citation needed|date=November 2017}} Franklin had also bought plantations in that area, establishing [[Isaac Franklin Plantation|Fairvue Plantation]] in [[Gallatin, Tennessee]], and additional lands in Louisiana and Texas.
Armfield settled [[Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee|Gruetli]], a Swiss settlement in [[Grundy County, Tennessee]].<ref name="tennesseanthelatecolonel">{{cite news|title=The Late Colonel John Armfield.|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/121802509/?terms=%22John%2BArmfield%22|access-date=November 3, 2017|work=The Tennessean|date=October 13, 1871|page=3|via=[[Newspapers.com]]|url-access=registration }}</ref> In 1855, he developed the resort of [[Beersheba Springs]] in [[Grundy County, Tennessee]], which attracted wealthy patrons. It still is operating.<ref name="tennesseanthelatecolonel"/> Additionally, he was the biggest single donor involved in the founding of [[Sewanee: The University of the South]].<ref name="howelljohnarmfield"/><ref name="tennesseanthelatecolonel"/>
==Personal life and death== In 1831 Armfield married Martha Franklin, Isaac Franklin's niece.<ref name="howelljohnarmfield"/> Armfield joined the Episcopal Church, and his wife converted from the Presbyterian faith and became an Episcopalian for him.<ref name="howelljohnarmfield"/> The family attended [[Christ Church Cathedral (Nashville, Tennessee)|Christ Church Cathedral]] in [[Nashville, Tennessee]], as did Bishop [[Leonidas Polk]], with whom Armfield was a close friend.<ref name="howelljohnarmfield"/> Another of Armfield's close friends was [[John M. Bass]], mayor of Nashville.<ref name="howelljohnarmfield"/>
Armfield died of old age on September 20, 1871, in Beersheba Springs.<ref name="tennesseanthelatecolonel"/>
Armfield and his wife had no children. He is known to have fathered at least one child with an enslaved Black woman; he sold both her and the child. Rodney G. Williams, who is African American, has established his descent from Armfield by [[DNA testing]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Slavery's Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation |editor-first=Jill |editor-last=Strauss |contribution=Seed of the fancy maid |first=Rodney G. |last=Williams |isbn=978-1978800762 |year=2019 |publisher=[[Rutgers University Press]] |location=[[New Brunswick, New Jersey]]}}</ref>
==See also== *[[Slave trade in the United States]] *[[List of American slave traders]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{Cite web | url = https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/john-armfield/ | title = John Armfield | website = [[Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture]] | last = Gower | first = Herschel | date = October 8, 2017 | publisher = Tennessee Historical Society}} * {{Cite magazine | url = https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/slavery-trail-of-tears-180956968/ | title = Retracing Slavery's Trail of Tears | last = Ball | first = Edward | magazine = [[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]] | date = November 2015}} * {{Cite news | url = https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/14/they-were-once-americas-cruelest-richest-slave-traders-why-does-no-one-know-their-names/ | title = They were once America's cruelest, richest slave traders. Why does no one know their names? | last = Natanson | first = Hannah | newspaper = [[The Washington Post]] | date = September 14, 2019}}
{{Slavery in Virginia}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Armfield, John}} [[Category:1797 births]] [[Category:1871 deaths]] [[Category:19th-century American slave traders]] [[Category:People from Grundy County, Tennessee]] [[Category:Sewanee: The University of the South people]] [[Category:American rapists]] [[Category:Franklin & Armfield]] [[Category:19th-century people from North Carolina]] [[Category:Businesspeople from North Carolina]] [[Category:Violence against African-American women]] [[Category:American people of English descent]]