Slave Auction

Old Slave Mart Museum

The Old Slave Mart Museum, located at 6 Chalmers Street, tells the story of Charleston’s role in the domestic inter-state slave trade from 1856 to 1863.

History

The 1808 ban ended the country’s participation in the International Slave Trade which led to the creation of a domestic slave trading system. Charleston became one of the major enslaved collecting and selling centers.

Between the Drafting of the U.S. Constitution the Civil War

Slave Auction

Possibly the only known building used as a slave auction site in South Carolina still in existence, the Old Slave Mart was once a part of a larger complex of buildings which consisted of a yard enclosed by a high brick wall, a four-story brick building known as a barracoon, a slave jail, a kitchen and a dead house.

Auctions of the enslaved ended in November 1863. The property changed hands many times and between 1878 and 1937 the building was used as a Negro tenement and as an auto repair shop.

Purchase of the Building

In 1938 Miriam B. Wilson purchased the building and established a museum featuring African and African American arts and crafts. Judith Wragg Chase and Louise Wragg Graves took over the Old Slave Mart Museum in 1964. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Recognizing the significant importance to the African American story, the City of Charleston acquired the property in 1988. The site opened again as a historic site and museum in 2007.

The Slave Trade in St. Louis

Since enslaved Black Missourians were considered property under state law, they faced the prospect of being sold and separated from their families during slave auctions. For example, William Wells Brown recalled how he never saw several of his siblings again after they were sold. As the cotton industry grew in Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and other Deep South states in the 1830s, enslaved Missourians constantly feared being sold down the Mississippi River.

Bernard Lynch was the most prominent trader of enslaved people in St. Louis. His primary trade site was known as “Lynch’s Slave Pen” and was located at 5 th and Myrtle streets. This prison incarcerated enslaved people about to be sold at auction, freedom seekers who had been captured, and free Blacks who had violated the law. These people were regularly subjected to violent punishments by Lynch’s employees. Auctions occurred at least once a week near the St. Louis Courthouse.

Lynch abandoned his prison when the U.S. military seized it at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. Ironically, the U.S. military kept Confederate prisoners at the site during the war. As St. Louis historian Angela da Silva points out, “Bernard M. Lynch’s slave pen turned into a prison for the same people who went shopping there [before the war].”

Today, the original location of Lynch’s Slave Pen is the site of Ballpark Village.

Bernard Lynch used this oak box to store cash from his slave trading business. It is the only existing artifact connected to Lynch’s business.

Slavery and Freedom: Remembering the Victims of St. Louis’s Slave Trade

Few visual reminders of the slave trade remain in St. Louis today. In 2021, Missouri State Representatives Rasheen Aldridge and Trish Gunby called for a memorial at the original location of Lynch’s Slave Pen to commemorate the city’s enslaved residents who were victims of the slave trade. Since then, a dedicated group of individuals continues to advocate for a marker and is working to secure ownership and funding.

St. Louis’s most proslavery, pro-Democrat party newspaper in the 1850s and 1860s was the confusingly-titled Missouri Republican. Bernard Lynch regulary posted advertisements for his business in the newspaper. This advertisement from the August 4, 1860 edition reads as follows:

B.M. Lynch has removed to his large, airy, new quarters, No. 57 South Fifth street, corner of Myrtle. He will pay the highest prices known to the trade for all descriptions of negroes suited to the Southern markets. Will also board and sell on commission. Thankful for past favors, he solicits a continuance of public patronage. Negroes on hand and for sale at all times.

Another advertisement from an anonymous patron underneath Lynch’s advertisement reads:

For Sale–A very likely intelligent MULATTO BOY, between ten and twelve years of age. Is a good hand to wash dishes, wait on the table, take care of children, run on errands, &c. Address postoffice, box 2,577.

Thomas Satterwhite Noble’s first professional painting was “Last Sale of the Slaves,” which he completed in 1865. This oil painting depicts an auction near the steps of the St. Louis Courthouse that reportedly occured on January 1, 1861. In 2011, Gateway Arch National Park hosted a slave auction reenactment at the courthouse.

Interestingly, Noble served in the Confederacy during the Civil War.