March 6, 1724 - Henry Laurens
Among the Founding Fathers, Laurens occupied a singular position: a Revolutionary statesman whose fortune was built almost entirely on the trafficking of human beings. As a senior partner in the largest slave-trading firm in North America, he helped facilitate the sale of more than eight thousand enslaved Africans in a single decade. His political career — including service as a Continental Congress president and diplomatic envoy — unfolded in direct continuity with that commercial history, not apart from it.
From Wikipedia
Henry Laurens (March 6, 1724 [O.S. February 24, 1723] – December 8, 1792) was an American Founding Father, merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as its president. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and, as president, presided over its passage.
Laurens had earned great wealth as a partner in the largest slave-trading house in North America, Austin and Laurens. In the 1750s alone, this Charleston firm oversaw the sale of more than 8,000 enslaved Africans. Laurens served for a time as vice president of South Carolina and as the United States minister to the Dutch Republic during the Revolutionary War. He was captured at sea by the British and imprisoned for a little more than a year in the Tower of London. His oldest son, John Laurens, was an aide-de-camp to George Washington and a colonel in the Continental Army.
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