^* The historian Steven Deyle writes: “The United States banned the African slave trade but not slavery itself, opening the door to the development of an even larger American trade in slaves. Virginia slave owners used their extensive political power in the early Republic to promote this new traffic, which quickly answered their needs. The domestic slave trade transformed southern society, making human chattel the most valuable form of property in the South” (Deyle, “‘Abominable’ New Trade”).