James McMillin

James McMillin (July 26, 1806 – May 24, 1857) was an American tavern keeper and slave trader of Kentucky. He was implicated in more than one case of attempted kidnapping into slavery (the abduction of a free family of color with intent to sell them as chattel in a slave state).

In 1857, Memphis slave trader Isaac Bolton shot McMillin several times over an unprofitable trade. McMillin died hours later in the home of Memphis slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest. His last name is very often spelled McMillan or McMillen; this article uses the spelling that appears on his grave marker and hometown newspaper.

McMillin's murder would mark the beginning the Bolton–Dickins feud, a gangland war between associates of Bolton, Dickens & Co., one of the largest professional slave trading businesses in the country. Between seven and 19 people were ultimately killed as a result of the war.

Life and work

McMillin was a resident of Maysville, Kentucky. His name is often recorded as James McMillan or James McMillen. His widow once testified that McMillin "kept his slaves in the basement of his kitchen." Bedford Forrest beginning in 1853, and Bolton, Dickens & Co., Forrest and McMillin had a profit-sharing agreement in which McMillin received 25 percent of revenue above expenses on enslaved people that were purchased for resale at Forrest's negro marts in Memphis, Tennessee, and Vicksburg, Mississippi. thumb In 1850, notorious Lexington, Kentucky, trader Lewis Robards paid McMillin to kidnap a legally free woman named Arian Belle, and her four-year-old child Martha, from Mason County, Kentucky, in the middle of the night. According to the Maysville Eagle by way of the Louisville Daily Courier:

At some point before his murder, McMillin sold a young person named John Burnett, who later, under his current name of John Cook, placed a family reunification ad in the newspaper in 1886, hoping to find his lost mother and sister, or perhaps his mother's other sons:

DEAR EDITOR ---- I was born ten miles northeast of Mayville, Ky., on Mrs. Margaret Cook's plantation. My mother's name was Pennela[?]in White. She had three sons who went to St. Louis, John, Alvin, Aaron, Charlie, Oliver and James Henson. They went to St. Louis with Henry Duval. At that time I was going by the name of John Burnett. I was sold to a speculator by the name of James McMullen, and I was brought South by the same man. I had a sister by the name of Elizabeth, who married a man by the name of Henry Gine. Any one that can inform me of the above relatives will please address the Rev. A. D. Green or the writer. JNO. COOK. Kosciusko, Miss. In Slave-Trading in the Old South, Frederic Bancroft described the circumstances of McMillin's death, writing that he was "a well-known trader, who for years had ranged over Kentucky searching for slaves for Lexington and Memphis dealers. The apprentice was promptly sent to Memphis and sold as a slave. This was a crime against the apprentice and a fraud on the purchaser. By some rare, good fortune the negro obtained the aid of a lawyer of integrity and by suit recovered his freedom; and the Boltons were compelled to refund the money they had received for him."

Over 20 years ago a colored lad was purchased somewhere in Kentucky at a public sale who had been manumitted by a will of his master and who was to be set free after he arrived at a certain age. The conditions of the sale were named and Bolton & Dickens' agent, one McMillan became the purchaser. He was conveyed to their mart in this city and the firm subsequently sold the boy for the sum of $1800 to Thomas B. Crenshaw near Morning Sun in this county. The boy was considered valuable and brought a big price for those times but he was sold as a slave for life nothing being said about his promised freedom. The colored boy informed his new master of the actual situation. Crenshaw sent to Kentucky for a copy of the will, employed counsel for the boy, and the courts decided against the slave traders. They were forced to return their ill gotten dollars to Crenshaw and also pay heavy costs for their misdemeanor. They had expected McMillan to testify in their favor. He failed to do so and stuck to the truth throughout. The dealers managed to obtain a new trial and having been deceived into the belief that McMillan would swear as they wished to prevent his reappearance. The 1898 Memphis Commercial Appeal retelling claims the buyer was not Thomas Crenshaw of Morning Sun but Rev. D. K. Crenshaw of Bond Station, Shelby County. A clergyman testified at the Bolton trial that although he was a slave trader and a tavern owner, McMillin was considered to be respectable and of good character. His body was moved from Memphis to Maysville by the steamship Northerner. His headstone reads, My Husband James McMillin, b. July 26, 1806, was murdered In the City of Memphis by Isaac L. Bolton, May 23, 1857, age 50 years.