137-736: Charleston County Courthouse (1790–92) is a Neoclassical building in Charleston, South Carolina , designed by Irish architect James Hoban . It was a likely model for Hoban's most famous building, the White House , and both buildings are modeled after Leinster House , the current seat of the Irish Parliament in Dublin . President George Washington visited Charleston on his Southern Tour in May 1791, may have met with Hoban, and summoned
274-494: A yellow fever outbreak killed about 15% of the remaining inhabitants. Charles Town suffered between five and eight significant yellow fever outbreaks over the first half of the 18th century. It developed a reputation as one of the least healthy locations in the Thirteen Colonies for ethnic Europeans. Malaria was endemic. Although malaria did not have such high mortality as yellow fever, it caused much illness. It
411-417: A basis for the sale of all Negroes". As a rule, there was an inverse correlation between age and price for enslaved people over 40. For example, in 1835 South Carolina, when Ann Ball spent almost US$ 80,000 (equivalent to $ 2,362,839 in 2023) to buy 215 enslaved people from the estates of her deceased relatives, she made a point to buy several apparently elderly slaves (Old Rachel, Old Lucy, Old Charles) and
548-607: A center for the inland colonization of South Carolina . It remained the southernmost point of the Southern Colonies until the Province of Georgia was established in 1732. As noted, the first settlers primarily came from Europe , Barbados and Bermuda . The Barbadian and Bermudan immigrants were planters who brought enslaved Africans with them, having purchased them in the West Indies . Early immigrant groups to
685-521: A chair at Johns Hopkins in 1889 using part of the fortune accumulated by her late husband, Baltimore trader Joseph S. Donovan . In the words of one scholar, slaveholders were, fundamentally, "speculator[s]" who hoped "to endow [their] progeny for generations to come" through the "capital accumulation" represented in the growing numbers of people they enslaved. The returns from slave ownership, therefore, were long-term and intergenerational. In their day, slave traders were called everything from broker ,
822-534: A city in 1783. Population growth in the interior of South Carolina influenced the removal of the state government to Columbia in 1788, but Charleston remained among the ten largest cities in the United States through the 1840 census . Charleston's significance in American history is tied to its role as a major slave trading port. Charleston slave traders like Joseph Wragg were the first to break through
959-410: A dozen cities. Dealers in the upper south worked to collect what they called "shipping lots"—enough people to be worth spending time and money arranging for their transport south. There was a trading season, namely winter and spring, because summer and autumn were planting and harvesting time; farmers and plantation owners generally would not buy or sell until that year's crop was in. The seasonality of
1096-417: A factor in a market dominated by male buyers. Per Kotlikoff's calculations, "Throughout the ante-bellum 1800s, positive premia were paid for males, skilled slaves, slaves with guarantees, and children sold with their mothers." There were four main methods of forced transportation of the enslaved. Initially, transport was either on foot or by sailing ship, but following the popularization of the railroad and
1233-601: A foreign port, and defend her against any attempt to dispossess the Customs Officers of her custody until all the requirements of law have been complied with." This federal action became known as the Charleston incident. The state's politicians worked on a compromise law in Washington to gradually reduce the tariffs. Charleston's embrace of classical architecture began after a devastating fire leveled much of
1370-589: A long-run competitive equilibrium. Using an admittedly limited set of data from Dunning School historian Ulrich Phillips (includes market data from Richmond, Charleston, mid-Georgia, and Louisiana), Robert Evans Jr. estimates that the average differential between slave prices in the Upper South and Deep South markets from 1830–1835 was $ 232. In 1876, Tarlton Arterburn told a newspaper reporter that they'd made an average profit of 30 to 40 percent "per head". Evans suggests that interstate slave traders earned
1507-506: A majority of any church's parishioners be white. In June 1818, 140 Black church members at Hampstead Church were arrested, and eight of its leaders were given fines and ten lashes; police raided the church again in 1820 and pressured it in 1821. In 1822, members of the church, led by Denmark Vesey , a lay preacher and carpenter who had bought his freedom after winning a lottery, planned an uprising and escape to Haiti —initially for Bastille Day —that failed when one enslaved person revealed
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#17327646457601644-458: A nigger Hilo! Hilo! He sold her first to Louisianner Hilo! Hilo! And den from dat to Alabammer Hilo! Hilo! Ladies, ain't you sorry! Packet sails to-morrow, Sails to Looisiana. Ladies, ain't you sorry! See, de trader got me! Ladies, fare you well. The light-wood fire was made, and the negroes dropped in from the neighboring plantations, singing as they came. The driver of
1781-593: A night attack on the USS ; Housatonic on February 17, 1864. General Gillmore's land assault in July 1864 was unsuccessful but the fall of Columbia and advance of General William T. Sherman 's army through the state prompted the Confederates to evacuate the town on February 17, 1865, burning the public buildings, cotton warehouses, and other sources of supply before their departure. U.S. soldiers liberated
1918-601: A not-insignificant number of white slave traders provided for the families of mixed-raced children they'd formed with women they'd once enslaved , multiple sources attest that Baltimore slave trader James F. Purvis quit the human-trafficking business and devoted himself to banking and charity projects after a religious conversion, and New Orleans trader Elihu Creswell emancipated his 51 slaves upon his death and even funded their transportation to free states. As historian Deyle put it in Carry Me Back (2005): "While there
2055-469: A port in the coastwise trade, traveling to such ports as Mobile and New Orleans. Enslaving was the primary marker of class, and even the town's freedmen and free people of color typically enslaved people if they had the wealth to do so. Visitors commonly remarked on the sheer number of Blacks in Charleston and their seeming freedom of movement, though in fact—mindful of the Stono Rebellion and
2192-538: A premium. According to economist Laurence Kotlikoff , as the American Civil War was beginning in 1861, the typical price of a prime-age male slave sold in New Orleans was US$ 1,381 (equivalent to $ 46,831 in 2023). On average the prices for light-skinned female slaves were 5.4 percent higher than the prices for darker-skinned female slaves, possibly indicating colorism and sexual attraction as
2329-573: A separate mosque . Enlavers sometimes provided them with beef rations instead of pork in recognition of religious traditions. The registered tonnage of Charleston shipping in 1829 was 12,410. In 1832, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification , a procedure by which a state could, in effect, repeal a federal law; it was directed against the most recent tariff acts. Soon, U.S. soldiers were dispensed to Charleston's forts, and five United States Coast Guard cutters were detached to Charleston Harbor "to take possession of any vessel arriving from
2466-741: A short time they exercised salutary restraints; but soon they were evaded. The Creek Nation was then an Indian Territory, under the jurisdiction of the General Government, lying immediately on our eastern border. Here Negro Traders sought a shield for their operations, and our citizens went there to make purchases. Worn out at last with such subterfuges and shifts, the Legislature repealed this restrictive law..." When Louisiana banned slave traders from out of state in 1832, Austin Woolfolk set up operations at Fort Adams, Mississippi , which
2603-585: A sign of black blood in him." The amount $ 9,000 in 1853 would be over $ 250,000 today. There were several broad categories of work for which enslaved people were purchased: agriculture, domestic service, mechanical, and commercial-industrial. Agricultural workers grew and processed cash crops like cotton and sugar, or managed herds of cattle in Texas, etc. Domestics worked in the household or in hotels and taverns, cooking, cleaning, laundering clothes, producing household goods, and providing childcare, including supplying
2740-523: A slave society: it had a majority-Black population from the colonial period until after the Great Migration of the early 20th century, when many rural Blacks moved to northern and midwestern industrial cities to escape Jim Crow laws . At the foundation of the town, the principal items of commerce were pine timber and pitch for ships and tobacco . The early economy developed around the deerskin trade, in which colonists used alliances with
2877-1188: A small scale, especially in the first quarter of the 19th century, examples being the slave auctions held at Garland Burnett 's tavern in Baltimore, Washington Robey 's slave pen and tavern in Washington, D.C., Turner Brashears of Brashears' Stand along the Natchez Trace , as well as the notorious Patty Cannon ring in Delaware. Chesapeake cities like Baltimore , Alexandria , Washington, D.C. , and Richmond were "slave collecting and resale centers." Major slave-buying markets were located Charleston , Savannah , Memphis , and above all, New Orleans . Economists estimate that more than 135,000 enslaved people were sold in New Orleans between 1804 and 1862. Some traders only bought and sold locally; smaller interstate trading companies would typically have both upper south and lower south locations, for buying and selling, respectively. Larger interstate firms, like Franklin & Armfield , and Bolton, Dickens & Co. , might have locations or traders under contract in
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#17327646457603014-536: A source of labor in early America. It is estimated that between 1790 and 1860 approximately 835,000 slaves were relocated to the American South. The biggest sources for the domestic slave trade were "exporting" states in the Upper South, especially Virginia and Maryland, and as well as Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Missouri. From these states most slaves were imported into the Deep South , to
3151-500: A violent hurricane passed over Charles Town. The Circular Congregational Church manse was damaged during the storm, and church records were lost. Much of Charles Town was flooded as "the Ashley and Cooper rivers became one." At least seventy people died in the disaster. From the 1670s, Charleston attracted pirates. The combination of a weak government and corruption made the city popular with pirates, who frequently visited and raided
3288-640: A violent incident in Cainhoy at an October joint discussion meeting. Violent incidents occurred throughout the Piedmont of the state as white insurgents struggled to impose white supremacy in the face of social changes after the war and the granting of citizenship to freedmen by amendments to the U.S. Constitution. After former Confederates were allowed to vote again, election campaigns from 1872 on were marked by violent intimidation of blacks and Republicans by conservative Democratic paramilitary groups, known as
3425-430: A wage greater than that of an alternative profession in skilled mechanical trades. However, if slave traders possessed skills similar to those used in supervisory mechanics (e.g. skills used by a chief engineer), then slave traders received an income that was not greater than the one they would have received had they entered in an alternative profession. In addition to full-time traders, so-called tavern traders worked on
3562-578: Is no record of any slave traders feeling guilt over what they did for a living, the actions taken by the New Orleans dealer Elihu Creswell do raise some questions." Abolitionist Lewis Hayden wrote to Harriet Beecher Stowe , "I knew a great many of them, such as Neal , McAnn, Cobb, Stone, Pulliam , and Davis , &c. They were like Haley, they meant to repent when they got through." Stowe commented on slave traders in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), in reference to her fictional character Mr. Haley : The writer has drawn in this work only one class of
3699-541: Is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina , the county seat of Charleston County , and the principal city in the Charleston metropolitan area . The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor , an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley , Cooper , and Wando rivers. Charleston had a population of 150,227 at
3836-532: The Georgia-man who would take them away to, if not the geographical Georgia , an allegorical "Georgia," elsewhere in the cotton and sugar lands far south from where they were raised. In the earliest years of the market, "dozens of independent speculators...bought lots of ten or so slaves, generally on credit, in Upper-South states like Virginia and Maryland." In 1836 a Philadelphia paper characterized
3973-413: The 2020 census . The population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley , Charleston , and Dorchester counties, was estimated to be 849,417 in 2023. It ranks as the third-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the state, and the 71st-most populous in the United States. Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles II , at Albemarle Point on
4110-484: The Atlantic slave trade , first as indentured servants and then as enslaved people . In the early 1700s, Charleston's largest slave trader, Joseph Wragg , pioneered the settlement's involvement in the slave trade. Of the estimated 400,000 captive Africans transported to North America to be sold into slavery, 40% are thought to have landed at Sullivan's Island off Charlestown. Free people of color also migrated from
4247-587: The Cherokee and Creek peoples to secure the raw material. At the same time, Native Americans kidnapped and enslaved each other in warfare. From 1680 to 1720, approximately 40,000 native men, women, and children were sold through the port, principally to the West Indies such as ( Bermuda and the Bahamas ), but also to other Southern colonies. The Lowcountry planters did not keep enslaved Native Americans, considering them too prone to escape or revolt. They used
Charleston County Courthouse - Misplaced Pages Continue
4384-638: The Continental Congress were elected in 1774, and South Carolina declared its independence from Britain on the steps of the Exchange . Slavery was again an important factor in the city's role during the Revolutionary War . The British attacked the settlement three times, assuming that the settlement had a large base of Loyalists who would rally to their cause once given some military support. The loyalty of white Southerners towards
4521-526: The First and Second banks were also located in Charleston. Throughout the Antebellum Period , Charleston continued to be the only major American city with a majority-slave population. The city's widespread use of enslaved people as workers was a frequent subject of writers and visitors: a merchant from Liverpool noted in 1834 that "almost all the working population are Negroes, all the servants,
4658-576: The Louisville Courier that "The secessionists are carrying out the principles and wishes of the abolitionists. Likely negroes could not be sold here at $ 500 in good money. Negro traders are as scarce here as in Boston." Still, the business remained brisk and prices rose in the protected interior of the CSA, and according to historian Robert Colby, "Confederates nevertheless interpreted the health of
4795-739: The Reconstruction era . The war had shattered the city's prosperity. Still, the African-American population surged (from 17,000 in 1860 to over 27,000 in 1880) as freedmen moved from the countryside to the major city. Blacks quickly left the Southern Baptist Church and resumed open meetings of the African Methodist Episcopal and AME Zion churches. They purchased dogs, guns, liquor, and better clothes—all previously banned—and ceased yielding
4932-512: The Red Shirts . Violent incidents occurred in Charleston on King Street on September 6 and nearby Cainhoy on October 15 in association with political meetings before the 1876 election. The Cainhoy incident was the only one statewide in which more whites were killed than blacks. The Red Shirts were instrumental in suppressing the black Republican vote in some areas in 1876 and narrowly electing Wade Hampton as governor, and taking back control of
5069-600: The United States . It was most significant after 1808, when the importation of slaves from Africa was prohibited by federal law. Historians estimate that upwards of one million slaves were forcibly relocated from the Upper South , places like Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Missouri, to the territories and states of the Deep South , especially Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. Economists say that transactions in
5206-693: The Upper South to the Deep South in the antebellum years, as cotton plantations were widely developed through what became known as the Black Belt . Many enslaved people were transported in the coastwise slave trade , with slave ships stopping at ports such as Charleston. Charleston was significant in the American Civil War . As a pivotal city, the U.S. Army and Confederate States Army vied for control of it. The rebellion began in Charleston Harbor in 1861 and ended mere months after
5343-467: The West Indies , being descendants of white planters and their Black consorts and unions among the working classes. In 1767, Gadsden's Wharf was constructed at the city port on the Cooper River; it ultimately extended 840 feet and could accommodate six ships at a time. Many enslaved people were sold from here. Devoted to plantation agriculture that depended on enslaved labor, South Carolina became
5480-413: The cotton gin sped the processing of the crop over 50 times. Britain 's Industrial Revolution —initially built upon its textile industry —took up the extra production ravenously and cotton became Charleston's major export commodity in the 19th century. The Bank of South Carolina, the second-oldest building in the nation to be constructed as a bank, was established in 1798. In 1800 and 1817, branches of
5617-595: The historic district near the park at Washington Square . It was built on the site of and incorporated the ruins of the South Carolina Statehouse (1753, burned 1788), the capitol building for the Colony of South Carolina under British colonial rule. Hoban also designed a new statehouse building nearby, which was burned down during the Civil War . Charleston, South Carolina Charleston
Charleston County Courthouse - Misplaced Pages Continue
5754-521: The slave revolution that established Haiti —the whites closely regulated the behavior of both enslaved and free people of color. The town fixed wages and hiring practices, sometimes required identifying badges, and sometimes censored work songs. Punishment was handled out of sight by the city's workhouse , whose fees provided the municipal government with thousands a year. In 1820, state law mandated that each act of manumission (freeing an enslaved person) required legislative approval, effectively halting
5891-482: The steamboat in the 1840s, both were commonly used. Combining modes was also common, for example, as reported in the Anti-Slavery Bugle in 1849: "A week ago last Monday morning I took the cars at Baltimore for Washington. While standing on the platform where passengers step into the ears, Rev. John F. Cook of this City, came up and entered into conversation with me. He had been to Baltimore to preach
6028-463: The "slave-consuming states," especially Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman attribute the larger proportion of the slave migration due to planters who relocated their entire slave populations to the Deep South to develop new plantations or take over existing ones. Walter Johnson disagrees, finding that only one-third of the population movement south
6165-406: The 2015 U.S. gross domestic product...The unpaid fruits of their labors created an interest so strong that between 1861 and 1865, Confederate leaders staked hundreds of thousands of lives and the future of their civilization on it." As told by historian Frederic Bancroft , "Slave trading was considered a sign of enterprise and prosperity." The internal slave trade among colonies emerged in 1760 as
6302-403: The American South, they are passed on from one generation to the next with all the certainty and inevitability of a genetic trait." And yet despite the dehumanizing doctrines of white supremacy that seemingly mandated separatism and black oppression, there is evidence that at least some slave traders were perfectly capable of recognizing enslaved people as human, rather than some form of livestock:
6439-488: The Caribbean showed the planter George Lucas's daughter Eliza how to raise and use indigo for dyeing in 1747. Throughout this period, enslaved people were sold aboard the arriving ships or at ad hoc gatherings in the town's taverns. Runaways and minor slave rebellions prompted the 1739 Security Act , which required all white men to carry weapons at all times (even to church on Sundays). Before it fully took effect,
6576-518: The Cato or Stono Rebellion broke out. The white community had recently been decimated by a malaria outbreak, and the rebels killed about 25 white people before being stopped by the colonial militia. As a result of their fears of rebellion, whites killed a total of 35 to 50 Black people. The planters attributed the violence to recently imported Africans and agreed to a 10-year moratorium on slave importation through Charlestown. They relied for labor upon
6713-513: The Crown had largely been forfeited, however, by British legal cases (such as the 1772 Somersett case which marked the prohibition of slavery in England and Wales , a significant milestone in the abolitionist struggle) and military tactics (such as Dunmore's Proclamation in 1775) that promised the emancipation of people enslaved by Patriot planters; these efforts did, however, unsurprisingly win
6850-520: The Indian slave trade. The area's unsuitability for growing tobacco prompted the Lowcountry planters to experiment with other cash crops . The profitability of growing rice led the planters to pay premiums for enslaved people from the "Rice Coast" who knew its cultivation; their descendants make up the ethnic Gullah who created their own culture and language in this area. Slaves imported from
6987-497: The Market Hall and Sheds, where fresh meat and produce were brought daily, became a hub of commercial activity. The slave trade also depended on the port of Charleston, where ships could be unloaded and enslaved people bought and sold. The legal importation of enslaved Africans had ended in 1808, although smuggling was significant. However, the domestic trade was booming. More than one million enslaved people were transported from
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#17327646457607124-474: The Old South (1931) found—to the contrary of Phillips' position—that many traders were esteemed members of their communities. Members of the "best families," and a number of leading lights of the early Republic, including Chief Justice John Marshall and seventh President Andrew Jackson , were engaged in slave speculation. Contemporary researcher Steven Deyle argues that the "trader's position in society
7261-481: The Old South (1931) young female slaves were also considered an excellent financial investment: "Not only real estate, but also stocks, bonds and all other personal property were little prized in comparison with slaves...Absurd as it now seems, slaves, especially girls and young women, because of prospective increase, were considered the best investment for persons of small means." Irish economic theorist John Elliot Cairnes suggested in his work The Slave Power that
7398-595: The Revolutionary War and the Civil War, Charleston experienced an economic boom, at least for the top strata of society. Expanding cotton as a cash crop in the South led to massive wealth for a small segment of society and funded impressive architecture and culture. However, it also escalated the economic importance of enslaving people and led to greater and greater restrictions on Black Charlestonians. By 1783,
7535-486: The U.S. soldiers retook control of Charleston in 1865. Following the election of Abraham Lincoln , the South Carolina General Assembly voted on December 20, 1860, to declare secession from the United States , becoming the first state to do so. On December 27, the U.S. Army garrison of Castle Pinckney surrendered to the state militia. On January 9, 1861, Citadel cadets opened fire on
7672-648: The USS Star of the West as it entered Charleston Harbor. The first full battle of the war occurred on April 12, 1861, when shore batteries under the command of General P. G. T. Beauregard fired upon the US Army - held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. After a 34-hour bombardment, Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. On December 11, 1861, an enormous fire burned over 500 acres (200 ha) of
7809-407: The United States from the Caribbean, South America, and Africa was illegal but piracy continued until the opening of the American Civil War. Piracy was most active in the 1810s, with New Orleans and Amelia Island off Spanish Florida being key centers, and in the 1850s, when pro-slavery activists sought to drive down slave prices by illegally importing directly from Africa. Kidnapping into slavery in
7946-530: The United States was an ongoing issue. Unaccompanied children and people of color traveling to port cities and border states were particularly vulnerable. There are multiple accounts of armed gangs breaking into the homes of free people in the dead of night and carrying away whole families. The lucky ones were sometimes redeemed from the local slave jail by friends or lawyers before they were shipped south. According to Frederic Bancroft in Slave-Trading in
8083-670: The United States to quash the practice; free Blacks were banned from returning to the state if they left for any reason; enslaved people were given a 9:15 pm curfew; the city razed Hampstead Church to the ground and erected a new arsenal . This structure later was the basis of the Citadel 's first campus. The AME congregation built a new church, but in 1834, the city banned it and all Black worship services following Nat Turner's Rebellion in Virginia in 1831. The estimated 10% of enslaved people who came to America as Muslims never had
8220-460: The Upper South of "breeding" slaves for export. The proven reproductive capacity of enslaved women was advertised as selling point and a feature that increased value. Although not as significant as the exportation of slaves to Deep South, farmers and land owners who needed to pay off loans increasingly used slaves as a cash substitute. This had also contributed to the growth of the internal slave trade. Economic historians have offered estimates for
8357-458: The allegiance of thousands of Black Loyalists . The Battle of Sullivan's Island saw the British fail to capture a partially constructed palmetto palisade from Col. Moultrie 's militia regiment on June 28, 1776. The Liberty Flag used by Moultrie's men formed the basis of the later South Carolina flag , and the victory's anniversary continues to be commemorated as Carolina Day . Making
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#17327646457608494-488: The annual revenue generated by the inter-regional slave trade for exporters that range from $ 3.75 to $ 6.7 million. The demand for prime-aged slaves, from the ages of 15 to 30, accounted for 70 percent of the slave population relocated to the Deep South. Since the ages of slaves were often unknown by the traders themselves, physical attributes such as height often dictated demand in order to minimize asymmetric information. Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman estimated that
8631-542: The antebellum free black community, historian Melinda Meeks Hennessy described the community as "unique" in being able to defend themselves without provoking "massive white retaliation", as occurred in numerous other areas during Reconstruction . In the 1876 election cycle, two major riots between black Republicans and white Democrats occurred in the city, in September and the day after the election in November, as well as
8768-601: The architect to Philadelphia , the national capital at the time, in June 1792. The following month, Hoban was named the winner of the design competition for the presidential mansion, later named the White House, in Washington, D.C. He later altered his design under Washington's influence. In 1883–1884, the courthouse underwent a large renovation performed by Kerrigan & Grant. The Courthouse remains in use, located in
8905-592: The area under a kind of siege. British Army officer Alexander Leslie , commanding Charlestown, requested a truce in March 1782 to purchase food for his garrison and the town's inhabitants. Greene refused and formed a brigade under Mordecai Gist to counter British forays. The British finally evacuated Charlestown in December 1782. Greene presented the British leaders of the town with the Moultrie Flag . Between
9042-412: The bar, the press, and the pulpit, all pronounce to be a proper one. In this respect, society certainly imitates the unreasonableness of the ancient Egyptians , who employed a certain class of men to prepare dead bodies for embalming, but flew at them with sticks and stones the moment the operation was over, on account of the sacrilegious liberty which they had taken. If there is an ill-used class of men in
9179-442: The battles of Monck's Corner and Lenud's Ferry , Lincoln's surrender on May 12, 1780, became the greatest American defeat of the war . The British continued to hold Charlestown for over a year following their defeat at Yorktown in 1781. However, they alienated local planters by refusing to restore full civil government. Nathanael Greene had entered the state after Cornwallis's pyrrhic victory at Guilford Courthouse and kept
9316-455: The capture of Charlestown their chief priority, the British sent Sir Henry Clinton , who laid siege to Charleston on April 1, 1780, with about 14,000 troops and 90 ships. Bombardment began on March 11, 1780. The Patriots, led by Benjamin Lincoln , had about 5,500 men and inadequate fortifications to repel the forces against them. After the British cut his supply lines and lines of retreat at
9453-521: The carmen & porters, all the people who see at the stalls in Market, and most of the Journeymen in trades". American traders had been prohibited from equipping the Atlantic slave trade in 1794 and all importation of enslaved people was banned in 1808 , but American merchantmen frequently refused to permit British inspection for enslaved cargo, and smuggling remained common. Much more important
9590-619: The city included the Huguenots , Scottish , Irish , and Germans , as well as hundreds of Jews , predominately Sephardi from London and significant cities of the Dutch Republic , where they had been given refuge. As late as 1830, Charleston's Jewish community was the most prominent and wealthiest in North America . By 1708, most of the colony's population were Black Africans. They had been brought to Charlestown via
9727-434: The city within the month. The War Department recovered what federal property remained. Also, it confiscated the campus of the Citadel Military Academy and used it as a U.S. Army garrison for the next 17 years. The facilities were finally returned to the state and reopened as a military college in 1882 under the direction of Lawrence E. Marichak. After the defeat of the Confederacy, U.S. soldiers remained in Charleston during
9864-472: The city's growth had reached a point where a municipal government became desirable; therefore, on August 13, 1783, an act of incorporation for Charleston was ratified. The act originally specified the city's name as "Charles Ton", as opposed to the previous Charlestown, but the spelling "Charleston" quickly came to dominate. Although Columbia had replaced it as the state capital in 1788, Charleston became even more prosperous as Eli Whitney 's 1793 invention of
10001-588: The city. U.S. Navy control of the North Atlantic coastline permitted the repeated bombardment of the city, causing vast damage. Although Admiral Du Pont's naval assault on the town's forts in April 1863 failed, the U.S. Navy's blockade shut down most commercial traffic. Throughout the war, some blockade runners got through, but not a single one made it into or out of Charleston Harbor between August 1863 and March 1864. The early submarine H.L. Hunley made
10138-401: The city. Charles Town was besieged by the pirate Blackbeard for several days in May 1718. Blackbeard released his hostages and left in exchange for a chest of medicine from Governor Robert Johnson . Around 1719, the town's name began to be generally written as Charlestown and, excepting those fronting the Cooper River, the old walls were largely removed over the next decade. Charlestown was
10275-399: The city. On April 27, 1838, Charleston suffered a catastrophic fire that burned more than 1000 buildings and caused about $ 3 million (equivalent to $ 84,910,000 in 2023) in damage at the time. The damaged buildings amounted to about one-fourth of all the businesses in the main part of the city. A great cultural awakening occurred when many homes and businesses were rebuilt or repaired. Before
10412-469: The commodity was based on long-staple cotton cultivated in coastal areas and the Sea Islands . The disparity in productivity created arbitrage opportunities for traders to exploit, and it facilitated regional specialization in labor production. Due to a lack of data, particularly with regard to slave prices, land values, and export totals for slaves, the true effects of the domestic slave trade, on both
10549-551: The conversion of the United States Arsenal into the Porter Military Academy, an educational facility for former soldiers and boys left orphaned or destitute by the war. Porter Military Academy later joined with Gaud School and is now a university-preparatory school , Porter-Gaud School . In 1875, blacks made up 57% of the city's and 73% of the county's population. With leadership by members of
10686-495: The day before. While talking we advanced a few steps, which brought us opposite the Jim Crow car , in which were seated a clerk or runner from Donovan's slave-pen , with five slaves, a young man and woman, the exact picture of despondency and desolation, and three children, who seemed satisfied with the novelty of the scene about them. These slaves were on their way to Alexandria, to be sent thence overland, by Bruin & Hill , to
10823-453: The deterioration of soil and an increase in demand for food products, states in the upper South shifted crop emphasis from tobacco to grain, which required less labor. This decreased demand left states in the Upper South with an excess supply of labor. With the forced Indian removal by the US making new lands available in the Deep South, there was much higher demand there for workers to cultivate
10960-475: The domestic slave trade can very clumsily be divided into three major periods: The domestic slave trade wilted during American Civil War—there was a measurable price drop between 1860 and 1862, due to "market uncertainty" discouraging speculators. In May 1861, a "Southern Mississippian" who seemed to oppose secession even though "no man in Mississippi has a larger proportion of his property in negroes" wrote
11097-402: The domestic slave trade was one that resulted in "superprofits" for traders. But Jonathan Pritchett points to evidence that there were a significant number of firms engaged in the market, a relatively dense concentration of these firms, and low barriers to entry. He says that traders who were exporting slaves from the Upper South were price-taking, profit-maximizers acting in a market that achieved
11234-428: The economy of the Old South and general migration patterns of slaves into southwest territories, remain uncertain. These have served as points of contention among economic historians. The physical effect of forced labor (on remote plantation camps plagued with yellow fever , cholera , and malaria ), and social-emotional effect of family separation in American slavery , was nothing short of catastrophic. The history of
11371-613: The enslaved Africans brought to North America between 1700 and 1775, and about half up until the end of the African trade. The plantations and the economy based on them made this the wealthiest city in the Thirteen Colonies and the largest in population south of Philadelphia . In 1770, the city had 11,000 inhabitants—half enslaved—and was the 4th-largest port in the colonies, after Boston , New York City , and Philadelphia. The elite began to use their wealth to encourage cultural and social development. America's first theater building
11508-457: The far Southern market." —"Slavery in the District" Anti-Slavery Bugle , July 6, 1849 In the early 19th century several slave states had unenforced statutes prohibiting the interstate slave trade in hopes of minimizing the increase of black populations within those states. These laws were undermined in many ways; for example, " Hamburg, South Carolina was built up just opposite Augusta , for
11645-443: The fire, few homes were styled as Greek Revival; many residents decided to construct new buildings in that style after the conflagration. This tradition continued, making Charleston one of the foremost places to view Greek Revival architecture. The Gothic Revival also made a significant appearance in the construction of many churches after the fire that exhibited picturesque forms and reminders of devout European religion. By 1840,
11782-481: The fourth-largest city in the country based in part on profits from the slave trade and related businesses. The price differences between the Upper and Deep South created demand. Slave traders took advantage of this arbitrage opportunity by buying at lower prices in the Upper South and then selling slaves at a profit after taking or transporting them further south. Some scholars believe there was an increasing prevalence in
11919-516: The free white babies they cared for with their own human milk. Mechanics were expensive and prized: these were the smiths, builders, craftsmen, etc. Finally, commercial-industrial slaves were put to work all over the south in ironworks, steamboat boiler rooms, on railroads, at gin-houses, bagasse-burners, lumber mills, turpentine stills, and so forth. The owner of a slave might or might not be a slave's employer : owners often rented, leased, or "hired out" their slaves. According to historian Bancroft, in
12056-489: The generic term favored in Charleston, to nigger-trader (sometimes transcribed as niggah-tradah ), a term that appears in both slave traders' own descriptions of themselves in oral interviews and in records of African-American folk music of the era. Negro trader , negro speculator , and slave dealer were common occupational titles that appeared in census records and city directories. Anti-slavery activists called them soul drivers . Slaves sometimes spoke of
12193-403: The great slave market that was New Orleans, enslaved people imported from Virginia, and to a lesser extent Maryland and South Carolina, were advertised as an especially desirable product, whereas "the many slaves brought from Missouri and Kentucky" were rarely advertised by their place of origin. "Acclimated" slaves known to be immune to yellow fever and other communicable diseases also commanded
12330-412: The inter-regional slave market were driven primarily by differences in the marginal productivity of labor , which were based in the relative advantage between climates for the production of staple goods. The trade was strongly influenced by the invention of the cotton gin , which made short-staple cotton profitable for cultivation across large swathes of the upland Deep South (the Black Belt ). Previously
12467-435: The inter-regional slave trade was a major component in ensuring the economic vitality of the Old South. Many economic historians, however, have since refuted the validity of this point. The general consensus seems to support Professor William L. Miller's claim that the inter-regional slave trade "did not provide the major part of the income of planters in the older states during any period." The returns gained by traders from
12604-572: The inter-regional slave trade, it is possible that forced migration of slaves would have occurred naturally due to natural population pressures and the subsequent increase in land prices. In 1965, William L. Miller contended that, "it is even doubtful whether the interstate slave traffic made a net contribution to the westward flow of the population." Historian Charles S. Sydnor wrote in 1933, "The number of slaves brought into Mississippi either by slavetraders or by immigrant masters cannot be precisely stated." Robert Gudmestad found that "Disentangling
12741-562: The labor-intensive sugar cane and cotton crops. The extensive development of cotton plantations created the highest demand for labor in the Deep South. At the same time, the invention of the cotton gin in the late 18th century transformed short-staple cotton into a profitable crop that could be grown inland in the Deep South. Settlers pushed into the South, expelling the Five Civilized Tribes and other Native American groups. The cotton market had previously been dominated by
12878-593: The late 1870s, industry was bringing the city and its inhabitants back to a renewed vitality; new jobs attracted new residents. As the city's commerce improved, residents worked to restore or create community institutions. In 1865, the Avery Normal Institute was established by the American Missionary Association as the first free secondary school for Charleston's African American population. Gen. Sherman lent his support to
13015-443: The long-staple cotton cultivated primarily on the Sea Islands and in the coastal South Carolina Lowcountry . The consequent boom in the cotton industry, coupled with the labor-intensive nature of the crop, created a need for slave labor in the Deep South that could be satisfied by excess supply further north. The increased demand for labor in the Deep South pushed up the price of slaves in markets such as New Orleans , which became
13152-411: The lowest-priced single person was Old Peg, purchased for US$ 20 (equivalent to $ 590.71 in 2023), compared to an average price of $ 371 per. Another illustration of comparative slave prices is from the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation program: "The highest priced slave was a blacksmith worth $ 1800, and the lowest [priced was] a two-months-old mulatto baby, worth $ 25." On the other end of
13289-763: The monopoly of the Royal African Company and pioneered the large-scale slave trade of the 18th century; almost one-half of enslaved people imported to the United States arrived in Charleston. In 2018, the city formally apologized for its role in the American slave trade . King Charles II granted the chartered Province of Carolina to eight of his loyal friends, known as the Lords Proprietors , on March 24, 1663. In 1670, Governor William Sayle arranged for several shiploads of settlers from Bermuda and Barbados . These settlers established what
13426-598: The moratorium expired and Charlestown reopened to the slave trade in 1750, the memory of the Stono Rebellion resulted in traders avoiding buying enslaved people from the Congo and Angola , whose populations had a reputation for independence. By the mid-18th century, Charlestown was the hub of the Atlantic slave trade in the Southern Colonies . Even with the decade-long moratorium, its customs processed around 40% of
13563-437: The negro-traders. There are all varieties of them, up to the great wholesale purchasers, who keep their large trading-houses; who are gentlemanly in manners and courteous in address; who, in many respects, often perform actions of real generosity; who consider slavery a very great evil, and hope the country will at some time be delivered from it, but who think that so long as clergyman and layman, saint and sinner, are all agreed in
13700-480: The original Charles Town in 1680. (The original site is now commemorated as Charles Towne Landing .) The second location was more defensible and had access to a fine natural harbor. The new town had become the fifth largest in North America by 1690. A smallpox outbreak erupted in 1698, followed by an earthquake in February 1699. The latter caused a fire that destroyed about a third of the town. During rebuilding,
13837-505: The outside as sentinels. They sometimes have thousands here for sale, who in consequence of their number suffer most horribly." Similarly, in Alabama, a historian explained in 1845 that a ban had been undermined to the point that it was ultimately abandoned entirely: "...The people of Alabama at one time became alarmed at the evils which they properly anticipated would grow out of this traffic. Their Legislators enacted laws against it, and for
13974-478: The plantation, a colored man, brought out baskets of corn in the husk, and piled it in a heap; and the negroes began to strip the husks from the ears, singing with great glee as they worked, keeping time to the music, and now and then throwing in a joke and an extravagant burst of laughter. The songs were generally of a comic character; but one of them was set to a singularly wild and plaintive air, which some of our musicians would do well to reduce to notation. These are
14111-521: The plot to his enslaver. Over the next month, the city's intendant (mayor) James Hamilton Jr. organized a militia for regular patrols, initiated a secret and extrajudicial tribunal to investigate, and hanged 35 and exiled 35 or 37 enslaved people to Spanish Cuba for their involvement. Hamilton imposed more restrictions on both free and enslaved Blacks: South Carolina required free Black sailors to be imprisoned while their ships were in Charleston Harbor, although international treaties eventually required
14248-460: The practice. The effects of slavery were pronounced on white society as well. The high cost of enslaving people in the 19th century and their high rate of return combined to institute an oligarchic society controlled by about ninety interrelated families, where 4% of the free population controlled half of the wealth, and the lower half of the free population—unable to compete with enslaved or rented people—held no wealth at all. The white middle class
14385-487: The price spectrum from old women and babies is the amount men would pay for sexual access to physically attractive young female slaves, the so-called " fancy girls ," such as was the case is this post-war boast by former slave trader Jack Campbell: "Long as you ask about it, I remember the biggest money I ever got for a nigger was $ 9,000 for a devilish pretty quadroon wench that I sold in Louisville, about '52 or '53. She
14522-631: The proceeds of their sale to purchase enslaved Black Africans for their own plantations . The slave raiding—and the European firearms it introduced—helped destabilize Spanish Florida and French Louisiana in the 1700s during the War of the Spanish Succession . But it also provoked the Yamasee War of the 1710s that nearly destroyed the colony. After that, South Carolina largely abandoned
14659-464: The propriety and necessity of slave holding, it is better that the necessary trade in the article be conducted by men of humanity and decency, than by swearing, brutal men, of the Tom Loker school. These men are exceedingly sensitive with regard to what they consider the injustice of the world, in excluding them from good society, simply because they undertake to supply a demand in the community, which
14796-469: The purpose of furnishing slaves to the planters of Georgia. Augusta is the market to which the planters of Upper and Middle Georgia bring their cotton; and if they want to purchase negroes, they step over into Hamburg and do so. There are two large houses there, with piazzas in front to expose the 'chattels' to the public during the day, and yards in rear of them where they are penned up at night like sheep, so close that they can hardly breathe, with bull-dogs on
14933-476: The sale and shipment of enslaved people were in turn reinvested in banking, railroads, and even colleges. A striking example of the connection between the domestic slave trade and higher education can be found in the 1838 sale of 272 slaves by the Maryland Jesuits to Louisiana; a small portion of the proceeds of the sale was used to pay down the debts of Georgetown College . Caroline Donovan endowed
15070-448: The sale price of slaves were offset by both the fall in the value of land, that resulted from the subsequent decrease in the marginal productivity of land, and the fall in the price of output, which occurred due to the increase in market size as given by westward expansion. Kotlikoff suggested that the net effect of the inter-regional slave trade on the economy of the Old South was negligible, if not negative. The profits realized through
15207-697: The settlers declared war in October 1671. The settlers initially allied with the Westo , a northern indigenous tribe that traded in enslaved Indians. The settlers abandoned their alliance with the Westo in 1679 and allied with the Cusabo instead. The initial settlement quickly dwindled and disappeared while another village—established by the settlers on Oyster Point at the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper rivers around 1672 —thrived. This second settlement formally replaced
15344-482: The sidewalks to whites. Despite the efforts of the state legislature to halt manumissions , Charleston had already had a large class of free people of color as well. At the onset of the war, the city had 3,785 free people of color, many of mixed race, making up about 18% of the city's black population and 8% of its total population. Many were educated and practiced skilled crafts; they quickly became leaders of South Carolina's Republican Party and its legislators. Before
15481-425: The slave communities they already held. The 1740 Negro Act also tightened controls, requiring a ratio of one white for every ten Blacks on any plantation (which was often not achieved) and banning enslaved people from assembling, growing personal food, earning money, or learning to read. Drums were banned because Africans used them for signaling; enslaved people were allowed to use string and other instruments. When
15618-471: The slave trade accounted for 16 percent of the relocation of enslaved African Americans, in their work Time on the Cross . This estimate, however, was severely criticized for the extreme sensitivity of the linear function used to gather this approximation. A more recent estimate, given by Jonathan B. Pritchett , has this figure at about 50 percent, or about 835,000 slaves total between 1790 and 1850. Without
15755-532: The slave trade as embodying that of their nation." Times got still harder for traders when the Union blockade and total U.S. military control of the Mississippi River prevented the trafficking of people from, say, rural Missouri to New Orleans. But the slave trade, as an integral part of slavery, persisted throughout Confederate-controlled territory until very nearly the end of the war. Ziba B. Oakes
15892-495: The slave trade: "If you begin with the absolute belief in white supremacy—unquestioned white superiority/unquestioned black inferiority—everything falls neatly into place: the African is inferior racial 'stock,' living in sin and ignorance and barbarism and heathenism on the 'Dark Continent' until enslaved...Slavery thus miraculously becomes a form of 'uplift' for this supposedly benighted and brutish race of people. And once notions of white supremacy and black inferiority are in place in
16029-548: The state legislature. Another riot occurred in Charleston the day after the election when a prominent Republican leader was mistakenly reported killed. Slave trade in the United States The internal slave trade in the United States , also known as the domestic slave trade , the Second Middle Passage and the interregional slave trade , was the mercantile trade of enslaved people within
16166-466: The trade is visible in the record books of Missouri trader John R. White , which show that "Over 90 percent of the slaves imported to New Orleans were sold in the six months between November and April." The notion that slave traders were social outcasts of low reputation, even in the South, was initially promulgated by defensive southerners and later by figures like historian Ulrich B. Phillips . Historian Frederic Bancroft , author of Slave-Trading in
16303-590: The various strands of forced migration is like trying to untie the Gordian knot . Migration with owners, planter purchase, and the interstate trade blended together to form a seamless whole." The transatlantic slave trade was not prohibited under federal law until 1808. Imports from Africa to Southern states were ongoing from 1776 until that time, most often through the ports of Charleston and Savannah . Imports to Cuba, Brazil, and America often involved similar personnel and practices. Post-1808 importation of slaves to
16440-561: The war, men who had been free people of color comprised 26% of those elected to state and federal office in South Carolina from 1868 to 1876. The Pacific Guano Company , established in 1861, opened a plant in Charleston which consumed immense quantities of menhaden scrap brought from the water by the vessels which carried on their return trip a supply of South Carolina phosphates for the Woods Hole, Massachusetts factory. By
16577-672: The west bank of the Ashley River (now Charles Towne Landing ) but relocated in 1680 to its present site, which became the fifth-largest city in North America within ten years. It remained unincorporated throughout the colonial period; its government was handled directly by a colonial legislature and a governor sent by Parliament . Election districts were organized according to Anglican parishes, and some social services were managed by Anglican wardens and vestries . Charleston adopted its present spelling with its incorporation as
16714-542: The work of negro brokers: "They conceive the business of pawn brokers and merchandize brokers. They lend money on the security of slaves, taking the latter as a pledge, to be sold if the pledge be not redeemed. They advance cash on slaves to be sold at auction or private sale, deducting from the proceeds of sale their commission and expenses. They buy and sell slaves upon commission, to suit their customers, and sometimes doubtless, buy and sell free people of color on pretence of their being slaves." The argument has been made that
16851-990: The world, it is certainly the slave-traders; for, if there is no harm in the institution of slavery, if it is a divinely-appointed and honourable one, like civil government and the family state, and like other species of property relation, then there is no earthly reason why a man may not as innocently be a slave-trader as any other kind of trader. Male slaves were worth more than female slaves; one study found that on average males sold for nine percent more than females. But female slaves came with "increase"—children born enslaved to an enslaved woman were saleable, thus providing excellent return on investment. Prime age slaves were those ages 10 to 35, or more broadly enslaved children older than eight and enslaved adults younger than 40, because people of those ages were presumed to be able work and/or reproduce for an extended period of time. Overall, buyers competed most for male field hands aged 18 to 30, so "the selling price of this class supplied something of
16988-455: Was a major health problem throughout most of the city's history before dying out in the 1950s after the use of pesticides cut down on the mosquitoes that transmitted it. Charles Town was fortified according to a plan developed in 1704 under Governor Nathaniel Johnson . Both Spain and France contested Britain's claims to the region. Various bands of Native Americans and independent pirates also raided it. On September 5–6, 1713 (O.S.),
17125-405: Was constructed in 1736; today's Dock Street Theater later replaced it. St Michael's was erected in 1753. Benevolent societies were formed by the Huguenots , free people of color, Germans, and Jews. The Library Society was established in 1748 by well-born young men who wanted to share the financial cost of keeping up with the scientific and philosophical issues of the day. Delegates for
17262-530: Was due to wholesale relocation of slave owner and chattel, while the other two-thirds of the shift was due to the commerce in slaves. Historians who argue in favor of soil exhaustion as an explanation for slave importation into the Deep South posit that exporting states emerged as slave producers because of the transformation of agriculture in the Upper South. By the late 18th century, the coastal and Piedmont tobacco areas were being converted to mixed crops because of soil exhaustion and changing markets. Because of
17399-400: Was minimal: Charlestonians generally looked down upon hard work, considering it as labor meant for enslaved people. All the enslavers taken together held 82% of the city's wealth and almost all non-enslavers were poor. Olmsted considered their civic elections "entirely contests of money and personal influence" and the oligarchs dominated civic planning: The lack of public parks and amenities
17536-408: Was never ratified, however, Charles Town was never incorporated during the colonial period. Instead, local ordinances were passed by the provincial government, with day-to-day administration handled by the wardens and vestries of St Philip's and St Michael's Anglican parishes . At the time of European colonization , the area was inhabited by the indigenous Cusabo , on whom
17673-559: Was not unproblematic and owners who dealt with the trader felt the need to satisfy themselves that they acted honorably," while Michael Tadman contends that "'trader as outcast' operated at the level of propaganda" whereas white slave owners almost universally professed a belief that slaves were not human like them, and thus dismissed the consequences of slave trading as beneath consideration. Similarly, historian Charles Dew read hundreds of letters to slave traders and found virtually zero narrative evidence for guilt, shame, or contrition about
17810-613: Was noted, as was the abundance of private gardens in the wealthy's walled estates. In the 1810s, the town's churches intensified their discrimination against their Black parishioners, culminating in Bethel Methodist 's 1817 construction of a hearse house over its Black burial ground. 4,376 Black Methodists joined Morris Brown in establishing Hampstead Church , the African Methodist Episcopal church now known as Mother Emanuel . State and city laws prohibited Black literacy, limited Black worship to daylight hours, and required
17947-410: Was only 18, and was about as white as you or me, and her two children had light, curly hair. Her master lived down near Bowling Green , and though he didn't want to part with her he was so down on his luck that he had to sell her. I heard, too, that his wife swore that nigger must leave the plantation or she would go home to her family. My instructions were not to take less than $ 6,000 for the girl, and I
18084-461: Was so set on having the girl, I believe he would have given $ 20,000 for her if anybody had bid her up that high. He carried her home that day, and I ain't going to tell you anything more about him than that he made a big name in the Southern army and was killed at the head of his soldiers. One of this woman's children by her first master lives in a Massachusetts town now and is a rich man. There isn't
18221-611: Was still listing slaves in Charleston, South Carolina newspaper ads in November 1864. A handful of American-flagged ships were still moving enslaved people from Africa to Cuba and Brazil until 1867, when American participation in the slave trade ended once and for all. Slavery was a massive element of the U.S. national economy and even more so the economy of the South: "In 1860, enslaved people were worth more than $ 3 billion (~$ 83 billion in 2023) to their owners. In today's economy, that would be equivalent to $ 12.1 trillion or 67 percent of
18358-495: Was the domestic slave trade, which boomed as the Deep South developed into new cotton plantations. As a result of the trade, there was a forced migration of more than one million enslaved people from the Upper South to the Lower South in the antebellum years. During the early 19th century, the first dedicated slave markets were founded in Charleston, mostly near Chalmers and State streets. Many domestic slavers used Charleston as
18495-442: Was the first steamboat landing beyond the state line. Similarly, the organizing act for Mississippi Territory prohibited the introduction of slaves from outside the U.S. but "the foreign trade ban seems to have been ignored." The slave trade appears in the lyrics of working songs sung by African-American slaves in the antebellum U.S.: It's old Van Horn, de nigger trader Hilo! Hilo! He sold his wife to buy
18632-600: Was then called Charles Town at Albemarle Point, on the west bank of the Ashley River, a few miles northwest of the present-day city center. Charles Town became the first comprehensively planned town in the Thirteen Colonies . Its governance, settlement, and development were to follow a visionary plan known as the Grand Model prepared for the Lord's Proprietors by John Locke . Because the Carolina's Fundamental Constitutions
18769-413: Was to get a big percentage on all over that, so when they put her on the block I talked her up for all she was worth...There was more than twenty men bidding for her, and the fellow that got her for $ 9,000 was a rich and gay young bachelor from Tennessee, who happened to be in the city on a spree and was attracted by curiosity to the sale. He was a little drinky and wasn't caring anything for his ducats . He
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