Troy Valos News Today

Every year, people get very excited about Norfolk’s Harborfest. But for years some have chosen not to attend because of a belief that it celebrates the slave trade in our area.

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The region sent more than 21,000 enslaved people to New Orleans — more than any other port, according to a Norfolk researcher

Congress banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808. But the domestic slave trade — trading humans within the nation’s borders, dubbed “the Second Middle Passage” — continued through the Civil War and is much less discussed in American history. The Norfolk region sent more than 21,000 enslaved people to New Orleans — more than any other port, according to the new research of a Slover librarian.

For more than a century, people have known very little about the famous Norfolk spy, Mary Louveste. In 1861 or 1862, Louveste took information from the Confederate Navy about its ironclad ship the USS Virginia. Louveste gave the information to the Union. People have written books and news articles using that basic information and filled the gaps with fiction. A few local historians and educators, however, have been searching for more information.