In March of 1857, the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States took place at a racetrack in Savannah, Georgia. During the two days of the sale, raindrops fell unceasingly on the racetrack, almost as if the heavens were crying. In addition to the raindrops, teardrops fell from many of the 429 men, women and children who were auctioned off during the two days. The sale would thereafter be known as “The Weeping Time.”
The Slaves Were Sold by Trustees to Get Their Owner Out of Debt
Pierce Mease Butler, the owner of the enslaved who were sold, inherited his wealth from his grandfather, Major Pierce Butler, one of the largest slaveholders in the country in his time, along with his brother John. One of the signatories of the U.S. Constitution, Major Butler was the author of the Fugitive Slave Clause and was instrumental in getting it included under Article Four of the Constitution. But Pierce had squandered away his portion of the inheritance, losing a rumored $700,000 ($19.3 million in today’s dollars); now he was deeply in debt. He was a gambler who engaged in risky speculations and accrued a considerable amount of gambling debt due to his compulsive card playing. Management of Pierce Butler’s estate was transferred to trustees. Even after his mansion was sold for $30,000 ($826,000 in today’s dollars) and other properties were sold as well, the trustees turned to the Butler family’s 900 enslaved people. Divided into two groups of 450, half would go to the estate of John, who had since died, and remain on the plantations. Of the other 450 — Pierce’s half — about 20 would continue to live on Butler property, and the remaining 429 Black men, women and children were boarded onto railway cars and steamboats and brought to the Broeck racetrack, where each would be sold to the highest bidder.
There Was Excitement in the Air Surrounding the Big Sale
Word of the sale had spread throughout the South for weeks, drawing potential buyers from North and South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana. For weeks before the auction, notorious slave trader John Bryan took out ads in papers across the South advertising the sale. All of Savannah’s available hotel rooms and any other lodging spaces were quickly appropriated by the influx of visitors. In the days running up to the auction, potential buyers made daily excursions from the city to the Ten Broeck Race Course, two and a quarter miles west of downtown, to inspect, evaluate and determine an appropriate bid for the human merchandise on display.
They Would All Be Sold As Families – Maybe
The majority of the enslaved people had never been sold before. Most had spent their entire lives on one of the two plantations included in the sale. The rules of the auction stipulated that they would be sold as “families”— defined as a husband and wife and any offspring. However, there was no guarantee that this rule would be adhered to in all cases.
They All Wore ‘Expressions of Heavy Grief’
Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, one of America’s most influential newspapers at the time, and a staunch abolitionist, sent an undercover reporter to cover the auction to reveal the barbarity to his readers. In a lengthy account in the Tribune, journalist Mortimer Thomson wrote that some of the enslaved men and women, eager to impress potential masters who they perceived as kind, would sometimes cheerfully respond to 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 …” But he also wrote that “on the faces of all was an expression of heavy grief; some appeared to be resigned to the hard stroke of Fortune that had torn them from their homes, and were sadly trying to make the best of it; some sat brooding moodily over their sorrows, their chins resting on their hands, their eyes staring vacantly, and their bodies rocking to and fro, with a restless motion that was never stilled …” He wrote that many of the buyers all the while would be joking and making lurid comments at some of the females.
‘What Do You Keep Your N*gger Covered Up For?’
Thomson’s story tells of a woman named Daphne who comes up for auction wrapped in a shawl with her infant to keep the “chill air and driving rain” from them. Thomson describes the scene as men crowd around her, jeering and yelling to the auctioneer. “What do you keep your n*gger covered up for? Pull off her blanket.” Another chides, “Who’s going to bid on that n*gger, if you keep her covered up? Let’s see her face.” The men gather closer with remarks “emphasized with profanity, and mingled with sayings too indecent and obscene to be even hinted at …”
A Father Tries to Persuade a Buyer to Purchase His Family
The story in the Tribune describes the efforts of “Elisha,” who was “chattel No. 5 in the catalogue,” trying to persuade a “benevolent looking middle-aged gentleman” to buy him and his wife and two children, a boy and a girl. “The earnestness with which the poor fellow pressed his suit, knowing, as he did, that perhaps the happiness of his whole life depended on his success, was interesting, and the arguments he used were most pathetic. He made no appeal to the feelings of the buyer; he rested no hope on his charity and kindness, but only strove to show how well worth his dollars were the bone and blood he was entreating him to buy. ’Look at me, Mas’r; am prime rice planter; sho’ you won’t find a better man den me; no better on de whole plantation; not a bit old yet; do mo’ work den ever; do carpenter work, too, little; better buy me, Mas’r; I’se be good sarvant, Mas’r. Molly, too, my wife, Sa, fus rate rice hand; mos as good as me. Stan’ out yer, Molly, and let the gen’lm’n see.’
After Elisha had his wife and children walk around and be inspected, the story says, “the benevolent gentleman found where he could drive a closer bargain, and so bought somebody else…”
'Crushed Hopes and Broken Hearts’ on the Block
This is how the Tribune reporter wrote about the progression of the sale: “The expression on the faces of all who stepped on the block was always the same, and told of more anguish than it is in the power of words to express. Blighted homes, crushed hopes and broken hearts was the sad story to be read in all the anxious faces. Some of them regarded the sale with perfect indifference, never making a motion save to turn from one side to the other at the word of the dapper Mr. (John) Bryan, that all the crowd might have a fair view of their proportions, and then, when the sale was accomplished, stepping down from the block without caring to cast even a look at the buyer, who now held all their happiness in his hands. Others, again, strained their eyes with eager glances from one buyer to another as the bidding went on, trying with earnest attention to follow the rapid voice of the auctioneer.
At Sale, Lameness Was a Virtue
An enslaved girl by the name of Molly insisted that she was lame in her left foot. But the auctioneer did not believe a word of it. A physician in Savannah had declared that Molly was not lame, but was only shamming. So Molly was put through her paces, and compelled to trot up and down along the stage, to go up and down the steps, and to exercise her feet in various ways, but always with the same result, the left foot would be lame. She was finally sold for $695 [equivalent to approximately $15,300 in today's dollars]. To an enslaved person, a lameness, or anything that decreases his market value, is a thing to be rejoiced over. A man in the prime of life, worth $1,600 [equivalent to approximately $35,200 in today's dollars] or thereabouts, can have little hope of ever being able, by any little savings of his own, to purchase his liberty. But, let him have a rupture, or lose a limb, or sustain any other injury that renders him of much less service to his owner, and he reduces his value to $300 [$8,260 in today's dollars] or $400 [$11,000 in today's dollars], and he may hope to accumulate that sum, and eventually to purchase his liberty. Freedom without health is infinitely sweeter than health without freedom.
Champagne Bottles Were Popped When It Was Over
The two-day sale netted $303,850 [$8.3 million in today's dollars]. The highest price paid for one family — a mother and her five grown children — was $6,180 [$170,000 in today's dollars]. The highest price for one individual was $1,750 [$48,200 in today's dollars]. The lowest price for any one slave was $250 [$6,800 in today's dollars]. Soon after the last slave was sold, the rain stopped. Champagne bottles popped in celebration. Pierce Butler showed up and extended a gloved hand to a few of his favorite enslaved people, giving each of those sold $1 [$27 in today's dollars] in freshly minted coins, as if that were consolation to the families who had spent generations on his plantations and were ripped apart on those two days. Butler, once again wealthy, made a trip to southern Europe before returning to his home in Philadelphia.
Threats Against the Reporter’s Life
Thomson posed as a potential buyer to get close to the action, and judging by the reaction in the South once his piece was published, it was a wise decision for him to travel incognito. After “Great Auction Sale of Slaves at Savannah, Georgia” came out in the Tribune, it was republished in Philadelphia and London and caused an international stir. Threats on his life from public officials in the South were issued. They claimed the piece was an anti-slavery hit-job by Northern abolitionists. In fact, that’s exactly what it was.
Commemorated with a Plaque
The Ten Broeck Race Course has since been obliterated, and there’s now a lumber company on most of its former site. An elementary school sits on one corner of the former racetrack, but there’s not a single trace left of the old course. To commemorate the largest sale of enslaved humans in American history, the city of Savannah in 2008 erected a small plaque in a remote West Savannah park.
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