of 99 slaves to William Kenner and Co. at New Orleans, whereas by 1832 Robinson had himself removed to the latter place and was receiving shipments from Henry King at Norfolk.  In the latter year Franklin and Armfield sent from Alexandria via New Orleans to Isaac Franklin at Natchez three cargoes of 109, 117 and 134 slaves, mainly of course within the traders’ ages; R.C.  Ballard and Co. sent batches from Norfolk to Franklin at Natchez and to John Hogan and Co. at New Orleans; and William T. Foster, associated with William Rollins who was master of the brig Ajax, consigned numerous parcels to various New Orleans correspondents.  About 1850 the chief shippers were Joseph Donovan of Baltimore, B.M. and M.L.  Campbell of the same place, David Currie of Richmond and G.W.  Apperson of Norfolk, each of whom sent each year several shipments of several score slaves to New Orleans.  The principal recipients there were Thomas Boudar, John Hogan, W.F.  Talbott, Buchanan, Carroll and Co., Masi and Bourk, and Sherman Johnson.  The outward manifests from New Orleans show in turn a large maritime distribution from that port, mainly to Galveston and Matagorda Bay.  The chief bulk of this was obviously migrant, not commercial; but a considerable dependence of all the smaller Gulf ports and even of Montgomery upon the New Orleans labor market is indicated by occasional manifests bulking heavily in the traders’ ages.  In 1850 and thereabouts, it is curious to note, there were manifests for perhaps a hundred slaves a year bound for Chagres en route for San Francisco.  They were for the most part young men carried singly, and were obviously intended to share their masters’ adventures in the California gold fields.

Many slaves carried by sea were covered by marine insurance.  Among a number of policies issued by the Louisiana Insurance Company to William Kenner and Company was one dated February 18, 1822, on slaves in transit in the brig Fame.  It was made out on a printed form of the standard type for the marine insurance of goods, with the words “on goods” stricken out and “on slaves” inserted.  The risks, specified as assumed in the printed form were those “of the sea, men of war, fire, enemies, pirates, rovers, thieves, jettison, letters of mart and counter-mart, surprisals, taking at sea, arrests, restraints and detainments of all kings, princes or people of what nation, condition or quality soever, barratry of the master and mariners, and all other perils, losses and misfortunes that have or shall come to the hurt, detriment or damage of the said goods or merchandize, or any part thereof.”  In manuscript was added:  “This insurance is declared to be made on one hundred slaves, valued at $40,000 and warranted by the insured to be free from insurrection, elopement, suicide and natural death.”  The premium was one and a quarter per cent, of the forty thousand dollars.[31] That the insurers were not always free from serious risk is indicated by a New Orleans news item in 1818 relating that two local insurance companies had recently lost more than forty thousand dollars in consequence of the robbery of seventy-two slaves out of a vessel from the Chesapeake by a piratical boat off the Berry Islands.[32]