Bacon Tait -- Richmond's Major Slave Trader Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Bacon Tait became one of Richmond, Virginia's major slave traders, but where in Virginia was he born? The city wasn't really named for hangings.

Answer: Lynchburg

Tait was born in 1796 to a large family in Lynchburg. His father owned and rented out property in town, though Tait grew up on a plantation just outside of town. None of his other family members became slave traders, and he pretty much isolated himself from them when he moved to Richmond. Most of them spelled the name Tate, while he chose Tait.

There's one theory that lynching really did get its name from a judge named Charles Lynch who lived in Lynchburg. The town was founded by John Lynch who had a ferry there in the mid 18th Century, so there were many family members with that last name in the area. Charles Lynch ordered harsh sentences to Tories during the Revolutionary War, but he generally ordered whippings, not hangings, and the targets were white men. That's why it's considered a possible root of the word "to lynch," but not one of the most common theories.

2. Bacon Tait met a young foreigner, Thomas Boudar, whose language skills would help him when he began trading slaves in New Orleans a few years later. What other language besides English did Boudar speak?

Answer: French

Thomas Boudar was born in Cuba in 1802 to a French family who had fled from Santo Domingo with other French families during the revolution there. Though he certainly grew up in a French culture and learned French from his family, he may also have known Spanish, an additional useful language in New Orleans.

3. Bacon Tait first partnered with some experienced slave traders, before setting out on his own. His senior partners, James Wilkinson and Henry DeEnde, were located in which two states, like many other pairs of interstate slave traders?

Answer: Virginia and Louisiana

Wilkinson and DeEnde had been trading slaves from Virginia to New Orleans since 1822. Both were originally from Virginia, but DeEnde had moved to New Orleans years earlier. Wilkinson bought slaves in Virginia and De Ende sold them in New Orleans.

Tait suggested to Wilkinson and DeEnde that if they let him in as a partner, he wouldn't compete with them, because he was planning to start trading himself if they didn't let him in. Also, his extra investment would increase their capital and help them earn more.

They agreed, and he joined them in 1828 by investing $10,000, money which he had inherited from his father and then increased by investing in real estate. He had done well in real estate, so it was only a portion of all he had. He worked with Wilkinson in Virginia as a slave buyer.

4. What sneaky thing was Bacon Tait doing, that angered his slave-trading partners Wilkinson and DeEnde when they found out, and made them kick him out of their partnership?

Answer: secretly using partnership money to buy slaves for his friend Thomas Boudar to sell too

Tait was buying enslaved people in Virginia to send down to Wilkinson and DeEnde, but also sending slaves down to Boudar too. That ruined one advantage of having Tait as a partner: to prevent competition. He was still competing. Worse yet, he was sometimes even using the partnership money to buy people for Boudar to sell, and asking for more reimbursement from the partnership than he spent.

Wilkinson and DeEnde kicked him out of the partnership in 1828, but he had learned what he wanted to know about slave trading, and had swindled them out of a little extra money besides.

5. Slave trader Bacon Tait built his first slave jail in Richmond, Virginia circa 1831 to keep enslaved people for himself and others, before they were sold south. When Tait wanted to sell it so he could build a bigger jail, Lewis Collier bought it, took his lumps when he lost money, and then what other slave trader owned it till 1865?

Answer: Robert Lumpkin

You might never have heard of Lumpkin's jail, if you haven't lived in Richmond, but if you're interested in Richmond history, it's the one slave jail that's publicized there, because it's the only one that has been archaeologically investigated. Bacon Tait built the jail, sold it in 1833 to Lewis Collier who ran into financial trouble, and it was then sold to Lumpkin.

No buildings from the slave trade still stand, but archaeologists discovered the foundation of Lumpkin's lot and jail under a parking lot. It's mentioned on the historic "Slave Trail" by the James River, with historic markers both on the Slave Trail itself, and at the site of the jail, which is several blocks beyond the end of the Slave Trail. The Slave Trail runs beside Tait's bigger jail site, though it isn't mentioned on the marker there beside Buffalo Wild Wings as of 2016, because historic information on it is too new.

6. Bacon Tait built a bigger slave jail for his slave-trading business, that existed circa 1834 to 1865. It was sometimes also called the Cary Street Jail, or Grady's jail for the manager's name. Where was it located?

Answer: 15th and Cary Street

Tait sold his first jail to build a bigger one and kept his business at the bigger jail until the end of slavery. It was about a full block deep and a third of a block wide, located away from the other slave jails. It was in an area of Shockoe Bottom with warehouses and wholesale dealers, close to where goods could be unloaded from the James River canal and, later, the railroad.

The property was valuable for his heirs due to its commercial location, even though slavery was over.

7. Slave trader Bacon Tait had never married, but around 1842 he met a free black woman named Courtney Fountain, and apparently lived faithfully with her. So far, there's no record that he married, lived with or had children with anyone else. How many children did he have with her? After naming the boy after himself, he only needed to think of girls' names.

Answer: four -- one boy, three girls

Courtney apparently let him name the children, as the boy was named Bacon Cooper, after him and his mother's maiden name, and the girls were named after his family or his friend Thomas Boudar's family. But Courtney got her own way in other more important things.

8. Courtney Fountain, the mistress of slave trader Bacon Tait, had her own unusual family members in Winchester, VA, Utica, NY and Salem, MA. What surprising thing linked much of her family together?

Answer: attending anti-slavery meetings or helping the underground railroad

One family member from her hometown of Winchester, VA was arrested with abolitionist Charles Torrey, but avoided charges, escaped town, spoke to some abolitionist meetings in the northeast, then settled in Pennsylvania. Another represented Essex County, MA with Charles Lenox Remond at Massachusetts anti-slavery meetings.

Another attended anti-slavery meetings with Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and John Greenleaf Whittier, among others. One voted at a meeting that funds raised go to the underground railroad, rather than buying slaves' freedom.

It's not clear if Tait knew this when he met her, but he certainly found out, as later events showed.

9. During the 1850s, slave trader Bacon Tait put his business in the hands of his manager and left town to live away at least part-time with Courtney Fountain and their children. Where did they go? It was one of the few places their school-age children could be educated equally with whites.

Answer: Salem, MA, where her family lived

Courtney apparently convinced Tait to buy a house in Salem, Massachusetts, near her sister, maybe a brother, plus nieces and nephews, and he lived with her there part time, introducing her as his wife. The children went to integrated public schools, then Tait paid to send them to private schools.

At this time, her relatives were openly attending anti-slavery meetings, mentioned in the newspaper. It would have been impossible for Tait not to know, yet he apparently stayed with her and supported her and doted on their children, even punching a young white man who got fresh with their daughter.

10. Many slave traders lost their money when the Civil War ended, or had their wills mired in lawsuits. Bacon Tait had put his money in real estate, in buildings that survived the burning of Richmond, VA at the end of the war. Courtney Fountain, his "wife," died within weeks of him in 1871, but how much did he leave to their children? One brief newspaper notice said he was "one of the wealthiest residents of this city [Richmond]."

Answer: $100,000 to $250,000

Ironically, Tait's slave trading fortune went to four half-black children, the black half from a free woman, the white half his own. The boy who carried on his name died poor and childless, having gambled away his share of the money. Two of the three girls identified as white and married well into white society, one quite well, living near Central Park, NY with her husband, a silk merchant.

The second married an engineer and moved to New Jersey. The third daughter stayed in Salem, where everyone knew she was half black, but married a white man, legal there, and apparently didn't care about being known in a mixed marriage.

Source: Author littlepup

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Bacon Tait was one of Richmond, Virginia's major slave traders, though he's almost forgotten today, and so is his unusual family. This quiz is based on new discoveries published by LSU Press in 2017. Look for hints!

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