Freedom House Museum

Alexandria, Virginia

Once the largest domestic slave trading company in the U.S.

The Freedom House Museum in Alexandria is the former headquarters for the Franklin, Armfield & Company, once the largest domestic slave trading company in the country.  

From 1828 to 1836, the Franklin and Armfield Company purchased local slaves and sent them to the Deep South for sale.  At its peak, the business—also known as the Alexandria Slave Pen—was transporting 1,800 slaves a year to Louisiana and Mississippi.  The men who owned the firm reaped substantial profits, an industry which flourished at 1315 Duke Street for more than 30 years under various slave traders.

As depicted in the movie “12 Years a Slave,” Solomon Northup was one of the freemen deceived, kidnapped and forced into slavery. He would have been one of the men who passed through this site as well.  The building, now owned by the Northern Virginia Urban League, is being turned into a museum and is available to tour.

Also here is the Alexandria Black History Museum and in Chantilly, just west of Vienna is the Sully Historic Site.