Thomas McCargo, also styled Thos. M'Cargo, (after 1854) was a 19th-century American slave trader who worked in Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana. He is best remembered today for being one of the slave traders aboard the Creole, which was a coastwise slave ship that was commandeered by the enslaved men aboard and sailed to freedom in the British Caribbean. The takeover of the Creole is considered the most successful slave revolt in antebellum American history.
Early life
Thomas McCargo was likely one of the nine children of David and Nancy McCargo of Charlotte County, Virginia. Census records suggest he was born around 1790 (give or take five years), and he was more than likely born on his parents' farm in the south-central part of the state. Thomas McCargo was enumerated in the 1810 census of Charlotte County, Virginia, at which time he was between 16 and 25 years old; there was one enslaved person living in his household. In March 1811, Thomas McCargo married Elizabeth W. Davis in Halifax County, Virginia. David McCargo bequeathed real estate and "my negro George" to his son Thomas McCargo in his will dated February 3, 1814. At the time of the 1820 census, McCargo was a resident of Banister town, Halifax County, Virginia, where he lived with one free white female under age 10, eight enslaved black men and boys, and one enslaved black woman. In June 1822, Thomas McCargo married Eliza Ragland in Halifax County, Virginia.
As a property-owning white adult male, McCargo was legally permitted to participate in democratic processes in the U.S. state of Virginia in the early Republic era, and as such, in December 1827 he was appointed to a committee of correspondence, which was intended to generate support for the candidacy of Andrew Jackson and in oppose to that of John Quincy Adams in anticipation of the 1828 Presidential election. In 1830, Mary A. E. M. McCargo, daughter of Thomas McCargo, married James F. Hill in Halifax County, Virginia. Also in 1830, Thomas McCargo was enumerated in the fifth census of the United States as a resident of Halifax County, Virginia; his household consisted of three free whites and 41 black slaves, including 11 children under the age of 10.
Interstate slave trading
McCargo possibly began participating in the interstate slave trade in the United States in the late 1820s. In 1831 McCargo and other passengers traveling north from New Orleans signed an open letter published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, which was addressed to Captain Shalcross and crew of the steamer Hibernia for their "energy, industry, and perseverance, in encountering the ice and other difficulties, which they have done to a more than common extent." (The Ohio River freezing over at Louisville in 1831 is one of the experiences documented in the travel journal of Alexis de Tocqueville.) In 1833, McCargo was seemingly involved in the establishment of the Forks of the Road slave market outside Natchez, Mississippi. Cholera was epidemic that year, and a shipment from Alexandria, Virginia to the Delta region arrived with a number of sick and dying enslaved passengers. Trader Isaac Franklin and his overseer apparently conspired to dump several of the bodies of the dead in a ravine near Natchez, Mississippi, and refused to participate in an investigation of the circumstances by which the barely buried bodies came to be in the ravine. The population of the town was irate at the dead babies and teenagers, and alarmed at the possibility that slave traders were importing contagion. To placate the citizens of Natchez, 10 slave traders, including McCargo, signed a public letter agreeing to relocate outside the city limits. According to one history, McCargo was a subsidiary trader to James Franklin Purvis of Baltimore, who was, in turn, subsidiary to Franklin & Armfield.
In 1835, Thomas McCargo placed an ad reporting that three "bills of exchange" had been stolen from him, totaling . In February 1836, McCargo advertised in Virginia that he would like to pay cash for up 200 enslaved people, from ages 12 to 25. He invited potential sellers to visit his premises near Seabrook's Warehouse in Richmond, "where we are prepared to keep them safe and comfortable, whether for sale or otherwise." The University of Virginia Libraries hold a collection of letters to slave trader William Crow; according to a collection guide created by the library, a trader named Thomas Jackson wrote to Crow in autumn 1839 that the Richmond market was weak in both price and sales volume, but that "McCargo and Purvis had sold all of their slaves."