An Evening with Phil and Frances Racine | Backcountry Slave Trader

Join us for a reading and refreshments with Spartanburg's own Phil Racine and Frances Racine to celebrate the publication of their new book, Backcountry Slave Trader.

Backcountry Slave Trader explores the life of William James Smith, a South Carolina backcountry slave trader, whose entries in his business ledger and his correspondence were of unusual specificity. The authors’ analyze these entries and his correspondence, which they argue provide details about the institutional features of the domestic slave trade not found in earlier published works. The authors examine the attitude of Smith and how he conducted his business, and reveal that the interior slave trade and the characterization of the slave trader are more nuanced than previously thought.