The Library of Virginia will host a free virtual talk by historian Robert K.D. Colby on his debut book “An Unholy Traffic: Slave Trading in the Civil War South” on Tuesday, March 25, from noon to 1 p.m. Registration is required at lva-virginia.libcal.com.

Colby’s book examines how Confederates continued to buy and sell thousands of enslaved people during the Civil War. He explains that these transactions were driven by a variety of factors, including adapting to wartime pressures, securing investments in a future built on slavery and resisting the advancement of emancipation. The ongoing slave trade had a profound impact on the lives of the enslaved, their families and their pursuit of freedom. Colby argues this enduring traffic of human beings shaped the South’s wartime experience and its aftermath.

Colby is an assistant professor of history at the University of Mississippi. His research has been recognized by the Society of American Historians and the Society of Civil War Historians. His work has been published in several academic journals, including The Journal of the Civil War Era, The Journal of the Early Republic and Slavery & Abolition.