As a slave regards a life on the sugar, cotton, or rice plantation as even worse than death, they are ever on the watch for an opportunity to escape.
The trader, aware of this, secures his victims in chains before he sets out on his journey.

On this occasion, Jennings had the men chained in pairs, while the women were allowed to go unfastened, but were closely watched.
After a march of eight days, the company arrived on the banks of the Ohio River, where they took a steamer for the place of their destination.

Jennings had already advertised in the New Orleans papers, that he would be there with a prime lot of able-bodied slaves, men and women, fit for field-service, with a few extra ones calculated for house servants,--all between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five years; but like most men who make a business of speculating in human beings, he often bought many who were far advanced in years, and would try to pass them off for five or six years younger than they were.

Few persons can arrive at anything approaching the real age of the negro, by mere observation, unless they are well acquainted with the race.

Therefore, the slave-trader frequently carried out the deception with perfect impunity.
After the steamer had left the wharf and was fairly out on the bosom of the broad Mississippi, the speculator called his servant Pompey to him; and instructed him as to getting the negroes ready for market.