A Richmond newspaper reported in the fall of 1836 that estimates by intelligent men placed Virginia's export in the preceding year at 120,000 slaves, of whom at least two thirds had been carried by emigrating owners, and the rest by dealers.[14] This was probably an exaggeration for even the greatest year of the exodus.

What the common volume of the commercial transport was can hardly be ascertained from the available data.
[Footnote 14: _Niles' Register_, LI, 83 (Oct.

8, 1836), quoting the _Virginia Times_.] The slave trade was partly systematic, partly casual.

For local sales every public auctioneer handled slaves along with other property, and in each city there were brokers buying them to sell again or handling them on commission.

One of these at New Orleans in 1854 was Thomas Foster who advertised that he would pay the highest prices for sound negroes as well as sell those whom merchants or private citizens might consign him.
Expecting to receive negroes throughout the season, he said, he would have a constant stock of mechanics, domestics and field hands; and in addition he would house as many as three hundred slaves at a time, for such as were importing them from other states.[16] Similarly Clark and Grubb, of Whitehall Street in Atlanta, when advertising their business as wholesale grocers, commission merchants and negro brokers, announced that they kept slaves of all classes constantly on hand and were paying the highest market prices for all that might be offered.[16] At Nashville, William L.Boyd, Jr., and R.W.Porter advertised as rival slave dealers in 1854;[17] and in the directory of that city for 1860 E.S.Hawkins, G.H.Hitchings, and Webb, Merrill and Company were also listed in this traffic.