John Hagan (slave trader)

John Hagan (died June 8, 1856) was a well-known^[1][2] American interstate slave trader who operated slave jails in both Charleston and New Orleans, as well as maintaining strong business and personal ties to the Richmond slave markets.^[3][4] He partnered with his brothers Hugh Hagan and Alexander Hagan, as well as with his maternal uncles, Hugh McDonald and Alexander McDonald.^[4] John Hagan was also a cotton factor, meaning he ran a cotton brokerage and de facto private bank and business office for cotton plantation owners.^[5]

According to historian Walter Johnson, "John Hagan's yearly routine began in Charleston with slave buying during June and July; he continued in Virginia and then was back in Charleston in September, still buying, before traveling to New Orleans in October."^[1] Hagan was both a shipper and consignee (intended recipient) of enslaved people who were on the Creole in 1841.^[6] Before he died in 1856 he worked assiduously to manumit a young enslaved woman from Virginia named Lucy Ann Cheatam, and her two children, Frederika Bremer "Dolly" Cheatam and William Lowndes Cheatam.^[4] He also provided bequests of cash and real estate for her in two versions of his will.^[4] Per historian Alexandra J. Finley, these children, and two others who died young, were almost certainly Hagan's biological offspring.^[4]

See also

• List of American slave traders
• List of white American slave traders who had mixed-race children with enslaved black women