With this detailed study of the importation of slaves to North America in the decades following the American Revolution, James A. McMillin tests long-standing assumptions about an enterprise thought to have waned in the wake of the United States' successful revolution against Great Britain. Combing through previously untapped public and private sources, McMillin uncovers data that challenges entrenched beliefs about the slave trade and, as a result, has far-reaching implications for our understanding of American life in the early republic. McMillin examines the volume and business of...