According to the family bible record kept by White's father, attorney John Blake White, "my third son was born, and was baptised Alonzo James on the 22nd May, following by the Revd. Mr. Fowler, at St. Phillips Church, my sister Sarah & myself being his sponsors...In November 1813, My dear Eliza was taken ill with
measles, with which she was very ill. Shortly after, all of our children were taken with the same disease altogether; with whom it has as yet proven very favorable. Except Alonzo, they have all had the
whooping cough—and by means of the blessed discovery of the
vaccine, they have escaped that terrible disease, the
small pox." Eliza Allston White died in 1817, when Alonzo was five years old. Contemporary scholars have estimated that the total sale price was about . White's take would have been if
Jervey, Waring & White took the typical 2.5 percent sales commission, split three ways. On March 29, 1838, 26-year-old Alonzo J. White married Eliza Ingraham at Charleston. Almost exactly nine months later, on December 26, 1838, their first child was born, son Abbot Brisbane White. At the time of the
1840 census White lived in a Charleston household with five free whites, one free person of color, and five enslaved black or mixed-race people. A daughter, Martha Allston White, was born in October 1840. According to the family Bible, babies came regularly for the next few years: "Blake Leay, third child of Alonzo & Eliza White, born the 20th September, 1842. Alonzo James their fourth child, Born the 21st March 1845. Eliza Allston, their fifth child born 19th January 1847. 23rd May 1849, a sixth child, a son of Alonzo J. & Eliza M. White, born this day, was baptised 17th June
in extremis, Nathanial Ingraham."
Arabian, from Charleston to
New Orleans At the time of the
1850 U.S. census of the Charleston parish of St. Michael and St. Phillip, White was the legal owner of nine enslaved people, five female, four male, aged two to 36. He lived in town with his wife and six children, aged one to 12, and had real estate valued at . He was on the board of trustees of the
College of Charleston in 1851, 1852, 1853, and 1857. On August 6, 1852, Alonzo J. White became the father of twins, a boy,
William Moultrie White, and a girl, Louisa Hall White. On Thursday, March 10, 1853, at 11 a.m., White held an auction at the cobblestoned plaza on the north side of the
Charleston Customs House. Conditions of the sale were "one-third cash. Balance two and three years with interest from date of sale payable annually secured by bonds, mortgage of property sold, and approved personal security." British artist
Eyre Crowe, on tour through the United States with the writer
William Thackeray, sketched the outdoor auction in between assisting with Thackeray's three-lecture series at the
Hibernian Hall. In a history published 1937, historian
Frederic Bancroft described the Charleston scene in contrast with the images of a slave sale Crowe had sketched in Virginia: , and what appears to be an
American eagle; this page was otherwise the third page of a four-page list of "negroes belonging to" Dr. J. W. Schmidt, who had a plantation in St. Bartholomew's Parish,
Colleton District, as well as his "city negroes" On June 28, 1853, James Blake White recorded that his granddaughter, baby Louisa White, had died at the family home on the corner of Laurens Street and East Bay. In 1855, one of the people enslaved by the Whites had a baby: "White (formerly Jervey). (Jackson), son of William (servant of Mrs. John Johnson), and of Sary (servant of Mrs. Alonzo J. White, formerly of Wm. Jervey). Born Aug. 14, 1855, was baptized Sept. 21, 1855, in private, being ill." In 1856, along with fellow Charleston slave traders
Louis D. DeSaussure and
Ziba B. Oakes, White opposed a new South Carolina law requiring that slave sales take place indoors rather than on the streets. Their argument was that the law was "an impolitic admission that would give 'strength to the opponents of slavery' and 'create among some portions of the community a doubt as to the moral right of slavery itself.'" White's father, John Blake White, a respected citizen and apparently a talented artist, died at the age of 79 on August 25, 1859. Despite his earlier objections to selling slaves indoors, White became one of the Charleston traders who used the building now known as the
Old Slave Mart for auctions, such as the January 23, 1860 sale of "Sixty-Five Negroes Accustomed to the Culture of Cotton and Provisions." White continued selling people during the American Civil War, including Old Phillis, Venus and her three children, and Martha and her three children.{{cite book |last=Colby |first=Robert K. D. == Later life and death ==