Railroad · est. 1860
The Southern Railroads
Before the Civil War, the South's railroads were built largely by enslaved labor.
← Follow the MoneyRailroad companies rented and bought enslaved people by the hundreds to grade roadbeds and lay track; by 1860 they had enslaved roughly 15,000 African Americans, making some of them among the largest slaveholders in the South.
Documentation
The web
Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.
- built by·ThreadChattel Slavery
The South's railroads were graded and laid by enslaved labor.