SE corner of Main Street and 14th Street, Richmond
Built in 1841, the Exchange Hotel was one of Richmond’s most prestigious lodgings.
It boasted toilets, central heating, and running water; local newspapers often announced its visitors. The Exchange sat prominently within Richmond’s slave trading district. Businesses like hotels are often overlooked for their central role in sustaining abhorrent enterprises like the trade of enslaved people, yet the trade in urban areas like Richmond could not have functioned without them.
By 1840, over 20,000 people lived in Richmond, and over one-third of them were enslaved. Enslavement in the city grew alongside industrialization; the city’s position as the state capitol and a transportation center added to the growth of the enslaved population. Initially, slave auctions took place on street corners in this district. As the trade increased exponentially over time, these transactions moved into taverns and then hotel basements and other larger spaces. The Exchange served a multitude of purposes in relation to the slave trade, housing the offices of traders, lodging buyers from out of town, and serving as an auction site six nights per week.
The slave trade became such a significant economic driver that the city began regulating the business in order to financially benefit from it. In 1842, City Council began requiring slave auctioneers to purchase licenses to operate. In 1852, the city levied a tax on slave jails and slave traders. By the time of the Civil War, Richmond may have had as many as 200 slave traders and jails.
Today, a city parking lot occupies this space. The Reconciliation Statue, which records Richmond’s outsized role in the transatlantic and domestic slave trades, memorializes those directly impacted, and symbolizes a way forward, stands one block east at the corner of E. Main and 15th streets. Unveiled in 2007, the statue anchors the Slave Trail and is one of three identical statues detailing the global connections that fueled the slave trave. The other two statues stand in England and Benin.
To learn more:
- Richardson, Selden. Built by Blacks: African American Architecture and Neighborhoods in Richmond. Charleston: The History Press, 2008.
- Calos, Katherine and Graham Moomaw. “Unearthing Richmond’s Slave Trading History.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 23, 2014.
Image: Postcard of Exchange Hotel. Courtesy of New York Public Library’s Digital Library.