Slave Coffles: Chained Columns of People Marched Hundreds of Miles South

The primary method of transporting enslaved people in the domestic slave trade was the coffle — a column of people shackled together at the wrist or neck with iron handcuffs and chains, marched 20–30 miles per day over weeks and months. Routes ran from Virginia and Maryland through the Carolinas to Georgia, then west to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Coffles were a visible feature of American roads visible to any traveler. In the 1840s, sea transport became common — ships carrying enslaved people from Baltimore and Norfolk to New Orleans became routine. Enslaved people died during the march at significant rates from exhaustion, exposure, and disease. The coffles became a central image in abolitionist literature.