The 652 letters in this collection document the business dealings of Ziba B. Oakes, an enslaver and broker of enslaved persons, who lived in Charleston, South Carolina. The letters were written by several business associates and cover all aspects of the trade of enslaved persons such as financial transactions, sales instructions, and fugitives from slavery. Oakes’s real estate business and other financial matters are also documented. There is no correspondence from Oakes.

The majority of the letters in the collection are from enslavers, brokers of the enslaved, agents, and clients from different parts of South Carolina and other southern states with whom Ziba Oakes did business. For example, there are fifty-eight letters written to Oakes by William Wright from Savannah, Georgia; thirteen letters by Burch Kirkland and Company, from Montgomery, Alabama; and twenty-three letters by Thomas Limehouse, from Goulding, South Carolina. In addition, there are letters from traders from Richmond, Virginia and New Orleans, Louisiana. These contain specific details about enslaved persons bought and sold, and give market prices for each city.

Of the approximately 480 letters written by enslavers and slave traders, 135 were written by A. J. McElveen, whose job it was to travel throughout South Carolina’s Sumter District and purchase enslaved persons for Oakes. The letters include details about the number of enslaved persons that were purchased on each trip, the gender and physical descriptions of each person, and where on the plantation each enslaved person should work. Other matters include the problems he had with selling certain enslaved persons and his dealings with other traders. McElveen’s letters also provide insight into the relationship he had with Oakes.

Additional letters document Oakes’s real estate and other business ventures such as the buying and selling of plantations and railroad stock.