{"id":6172,"date":"2019-03-09T01:00:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-09T06:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dotcw.com\/?p=381"},"modified":"2020-12-26T15:21:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T21:21:48","slug":"a-great-slave-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/a-great-slave-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"A Great Slave Auction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warning! <\/span><\/strong><\/em>This article was written in 1859.\u00a0 It contains language that is considered unacceptable today.<\/em> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As properly part of the history of the war, the following New York Tribune\u2019s account of this sale is valuable. It was found among Abby\u2019s papers, dated March 9th, 1859:<\/p>\n

A GREAT SLAVE AUCTION.
\n400 MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN SOLD.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe largest sale of human chattels that has been made in Star-Spangled America for several years took place on Wednesday and Thursday of last week at the Race Course, near the City of Savannah, Georgia. The lot consisted of four hundred and thirty-six men, women, children and infants, being that half of the negro stock remaining on the old Major Butler plantations which fell to one of the two heirs to that estate \u2013 Mr. Pierce M. Butler, still living and resident in the city of Philadelphia, in the free state of Pennsylvania. They were, in fact, sold to pay Mr. Pierce M. Butler\u2019s debts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sale had been advertised largely for many weeks, and as the negroes were known to be a choice lot and very desirable property, the attendance of buyers was large. Little parties were made up from the various hotels every day to visit the Race Course, distant some three miles from the city, to look over the chattels, discuss their points, and make memoranda for guidance on the day of sale. The buyers were generally of a rough breed, slangy, profane and bearish, being, for the most part, from the back river and swamp plantations where the elegancies of polite life are not, perhaps, developed to their fullest extent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe negroes were brought to Savannah in small lots, as many at a time as could be conveniently taken care of, the last of them reaching the city the Friday before the sale. They were consigned to the care of Mr. J. Bryan, auctioneer and negro broker, who was to feed and keep them in condition until disposed of. Immediately on their arrival they were taken to the Race Course and there quartered in the sheds erected for the accommodation of the horses and carriages of gentlemen attending the races. Into these sheds they were huddled pell-mell, without any more attention to their comfort than was necessary to prevent their becoming ill and unsalable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chattels were huddled together on the floor, there being no sign of bench or table. They eat and slept on the bare boards, their food being rice and beans, with occasionally a bit of bacon and corn bread. Their huge bundles were scattered over the floor, and thereon the slaves sat or reclined, when not restlessly moving about or gathered into sorrowful groups discussing the chances of their future fate. On the faces of all was an expression of heavy grief.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe negroes were examined with as little consideration as if they had been brutes; the buyers pulling their mouths open to see their teeth, pinching their limbs to find how muscular they were, walking them up and down to detect any signs of lameness, making them stoop and bend in different ways that they might be certain there was no concealed rupture or wound.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe following curiously sad scene is the type of a score of others that were there enacted:<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018Elisha,\u2019 chattel No. 5 in the catalogue, had taken a fancy to a benevolent-looking middle-aged gentleman who was inspecting the stock, and thus used his powers of persuasion to induce the benevolent man to purchase him, with his wife, boy, and girl. \u2018Look at me, Mas\u2019r; am prime rice planter; sho\u2019 you won\u2019t find a better man den me; no better on de whole plantation; not a bit old yet; do mo\u2019 work den ever; do carpenter work, too, little; better buy me, Mas\u2019r; I\u2019se be good sarvant, Mas\u2019r. Molly, too, my wife, Sa, fus rate rice hand; mos as good as me. Stan\u2019 out yer, Molly, and let the gen\u2019lem\u2019n see.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMolly advances, with her hands crossed on her bosom, and makes a quick, short curtsy and stands mute, looking appealingly in the benevolent man\u2019s face. But Elisha talks all the faster. \u2018Show Mas\u2019r yer arm, Molly \u2013good arm dat, Mas\u2019r\u2013she do a heap of work mo\u2019 with dat arm yet. Let good Mas\u2019r see yer teeth, Molly\u2013see dat, Mas\u2019r, teeth all reg\u2019lar, all good \u2013she\u2019m young gal yet. Come out yer Israel; walk aroun\u2019 an\u2019 let the gen\u2019lm\u2019n see how spry you be\u2019\u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, pointing to the three-year-old girl who stood with her chubby hand to her mouth, holding on to her Mother\u2019s dress and uncertain what to make of the strange scene,\u2013 \u2018Little Vardy\u2019s on\u2019y a chile yet; make prime gal by and by. Better buy us, Mas\u2019r; we\u2019m fus\u2019 rate bargain \u2018\u2013 and so on. But the benevolent gentleman found where he could drive a closer bargain, and so bought somebody else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the intervals of more active labor the discussion of the re-opening of the slave-trade was commenced, and the opinion seemed to generally prevail that the reestablishment of the said trade is a consummation devoutly to be wished, and one red-faced Major, or General, or Corporal, clenched his remarks with the emphatic assertion that \u2018We\u2019ll have all the niggers in Africa over here in three years\u2013we won\u2019t leave enough for seed.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOne huge brute of a man, who had not taken an active part in the discussion save to assent with approving nod to any unusually barbarous proposition, at last broke his silence by saying in an oracular way \u2018You may say what you like about managing niggers; I\u2019m a driver myself, and I\u2019ve had some experience, and I ought to know. You can manage ordinary niggers by lickin\u2019 \u2018em and given\u2019 em a taste of the hot iron once in a while when they\u2019re extra ugly; but if a nigger really sets himself up against me I can\u2019t never have any patience with him. I just get my pistol and shoot him right down; and that\u2019s the best way.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe family of Primus, plantation carpenter, consisting of Daphney his wife, with her young babe, and Dido a girl of three years old, were reached in due course of time. Daphney had a large shawl, which she kept carefully wrapped around her infant and herself. This unusual proceeding attracted much attention, and provoked many remarks, such as these:<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018What do you keep your nigger covered up fer? Pull off her blanket!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018What\u2019s the fault of the gal? Ain\u2019t she sound? Pull off her rags and let us see her!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018Who\u2019s going to bid on that nigger, if you keep her covered up? Let\u2019s see her face!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAt last the auctioneer obtained a hearing long enough to explain that there was no attempt to practice any deception in the case\u2013the parties were not to be wronged in any way; he had no desire to palm off on them an inferior article, but the truth of the matter was that Daphney had been confined only fifteen days ago, and he thought that on that account she was entitled to the slight indulgence of a blanket, to keep from herself and child the chill air and the driving rain.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince her confinement, Daphney had travelled from the plantations to Savannah, where she had been kept in a shed for six days. On the sixth or seventh day after her sickness she had left her bed, taken a railroad journey across the country to the shambles, was there exposed for six days to the questionings and insults of the negro speculators, and then on the fifteenth day after her confinement was put up on the block with her husband and her other child, and, with her new-born baby in her arms, was sold to the highest bidder.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very considerate in Daphneey; to be sick before the sale, for her wailing babe was worth to Mr. Butler all of a hundred dollars. The family sold for $625 apiece, or $2,500 for the four.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some thirty babies in the lot; they are esteemed worth to the master a hundred dollars the day they are born and to increase in value at the rate of a hundred dollars a year till they are sixteen or seventeen years old, at which age they bring the best prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeffrey, chattel No. 319, being human in his affections, had dared to cherish a love for Dorcas, chattel No. 278; and Dorcas, not having the fear of her master before her eyes, had given her heart to Jeffrey.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeffrey was sold. He finds out his new master; and, hat in hand, the big tears standing in his eyes and his voice trembling with emotion, he stands before that master and tells his simple story:<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018I loves Dorcas, young Mas\u2019r; I loves her well an\u2019 true; she says she loves me, and I know she does; de good Lord knows I love her better than I loves any one in de wide world \u2013 never can love another woman half so well. Please buy Dorcas, Mas\u2019r. We\u2019ll be good sarvants to you long as we live. We\u2019re be married right soon, young Mas\u2019r, and de chillun will be healthy and strong, Mas\u2019r, and dey\u2019ll be good sarvants, too. Please buy Dorcas, young Mas\u2019r. We loves each other a heap\u2013do, really, true, Mas\u2019r.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAt last comes the trying moment, and Dorcas steps up on the stand.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut now a most unexpected feature in the drama is for the first time unmasked; Dorcas is not to be sold alone, but with a family of four others. Full of dismay Jeffrey looks to his master who shakes his head, for, although he might be induced to buy Dorcas alone, he has no use for the rest of the family. Jeffrey reads his doom in his master\u2019s look, and turns away, the tears streaming down his honest face.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd tomorrow Jeffrey and Dorcas are to say their tearful farewell, and go their separate ways in life to meet no more as mortal beings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat night, not a steamer left that southern port, not a train of cars sped away from that cruel city, that did not bear each its own sad burden of those unhappy ones.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warning! This article was written in 1859.\u00a0 It contains language that is considered unacceptable today. As properly part of the history of the war, the following New York Tribune\u2019s account of this sale is valuable. It was found among Abby\u2019s papers, dated March 9th, 1859: A GREAT SLAVE AUCTION. 400 MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN SOLD. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":66774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-letters-of-a-family-during-the-war-for-the-union"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/woolsey_abby_howland2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}