The 2026 release of the final “Epstein Files” has once again forced the American public to stare into the abyss of elite depravity. The names, the logistical spreadsheets of abuse, and the systemic protection of high-status predators have been framed as a uniquely modern horror and product of private jets and offshore islands. However, for those grounded in the history of the Black experience in America, this architecture of exploitation is hauntingly familiar.
The sexual trafficking of children and young women by Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Nygard is not a contemporary glitch in the system; it is the modern iteration of a 19th-century market known as the “Fancy Trade.” By examining the through-lines between the antebellum slave market and modern elite trafficking, we see a persistent historical reality: an amoral class of the powerful that treats the human body not as a person, but as “living currency.”
The Fancy Trade: The High-End of Human Flesh
In the decades preceding the Civil War, the “fancy trade” represented the most explicit intersection of capitalism and sexual violence. While the general domestic slave trade focused on labor, the fancy trade was a specialized market for “fancy girls,” predominantly young, light-skinned Black women and girls sold at a premium to wealthy white men for the sole purpose of sexual servitude (Moran, 2005).
These women were not sold to work in the fields or the kitchens. They were “commodities of rape,” valued for their physical features and marketed in the “Price-Current of Human Flesh” alongside cotton and sugar (Moran, 2005). As Gordon (2015) notes, this trade was the formal commodification of sexual violence within a legal framework. It provided an outlet for the “elite amoral class” of the South to perform their dominance through the purchase and consumption of human beings. The fancy trade was not an underground secret; it was an open, taxpaying, and government-sanctioned arm of the American economy.
The Logic of ‘Living Currency’
To understand the parallels between an 1850s New Orleans slave pen and Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse, we must look at the concept of Living Currency. Scholar Pierre Klossowski (2017) theorized that in certain hyper-capitalist structures, the body itself becomes the medium of exchange. In the Epstein and Nygard enterprises, as in the fancy trade, young women were used as “social capital” to cement alliances between powerful men (Volscho, 2025).
In both eras, the traffickers operated through “harem logic.” Wealthy men did not just seek sexual gratification; they sought the status that comes with the absolute ownership and disposal of others. Wilson (2021) traces this exploitation of Black women from 1619 through to the modern day, noting that the systemic “othering” of these women allowed for a level of violence that the state not only ignored but often facilitated. Whether through the 19th-century laws that denied Black women “virtue” or the 21st-century “normative ambiguity” grey area that shields billionaires, the result is the same: the powerful are granted a license to moral ambivalence (Watson, 2026).
Elite Trafficking as a Crime of the Powerful
The recent comparative study of Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Nygard by Volscho (2025) highlights that elite sex trafficking is a “crime of the powerful.” This is characterized by using immense wealth to create “protected spaces” where the law does not apply. Epstein used his connections to the global elite such as politicians, royals, and academics, to build a shield of perceived legitimacy.
This mirrors the antebellum “elite” who frequented fancy girl auctions. These were the “gentlemen” of society, the pillars of their communities who used their status to normalize the purchase of children for sex. The “Epstein Files” reveal a similar ecosystem of enablers: recruiters, lawyers, and financiers who acted much like the “slave factors” of the 1800s, who brokered the sale of human beings while maintaining a veneer of professional respectability (Campbell & Elbourne, 2001).
The Erasure of the Victim
One of the most damning parallels is the “epistemic uncertainty” created by the powerful to hide their crimes. Watson (2026) argues that human trafficking is often
obscured by conspiracy theories and disinformation, which serves to protect the perpetrators by making the truth seem unreachable. In the 1850s, the “conspiracy” was the myth of the “benevolent master” or the “seductive” nature of the enslaved, which erased the reality of state-sanctioned kidnapping and rape.
Today, the noise surrounding “The Epstein Files” often veers into partisan political theater, distracting from the structural reality: our legal and economic systems are still susceptible to the same “sex and power” dynamics that fueled the slave trade
(Campbell & Elbourne, 2001). The victims of the fancy trade were often discarded once they were no longer deemed “valuable” by the market; similarly, the survivors of modern elite trafficking have spent decades fighting for a justice system that was designed to protect their abusers’ bank accounts rather than their bodies.
Recognizing the Blueprint
The horror of the Epstein files is not a new phenomenon, but a contemporary chapter in a very old American book. The fancy trade taught the American elite that the bodies of the vulnerable could be bought, sold, and used to grease the wheels of power.
As we analyze the fallout of the current investigations, we must ground our understanding in this historical continuity. The goal of public education is to see through “the normative ambiguity” and recognize that as long as we allow an elite class to operate with total immunity, the human body will continue to be used as a “living currency.” Only by confronting the roots of this exploitation can we begin to dismantle the systems that make “fancy trade” possible in any century.
Additional Context: The 1808-2026 Through-line
• 1808–1860: The Peak of the Fancy Trade
The domestic slave trade expands. Wealthy white men in the South pay 300% premiums for “fancy girls.” The legal system formalizes the idea that Black women have no “virtue” the state is bound to protect (Wilson, 2021).
• 1865–1920: The Transition of Control
While the formal trade ends, the “othering” of Black and vulnerable women persists. The amoral class moves from “ownership” to systemic “exclusion,” ensuring that certain populations remain legally unprotected (Wilson, 2021).
• 2000s–2019: The Epstein/Nygard Era
Billionaire predators build global networks that mimic the specialized auctions of the 19th century. They utilize “harem logic” to attract other powerful men, creating a modern-day “Price-Current” of social influence (Volscho, 2025).
• 2024–2026: The “Epstein Files” and Truth-Telling
The full release of court records and whistleblowers exposes the enablers. The public begins to recognize that these are not “scandals” but “Crimes of the Powerful” rooted in an ancient American blueprint (Watson, 2026).