We went next to see a very large pen, in which there were about forty
negroes for sale; they had within the last few days, sold about 100, who
had travelled by railway chained together. Those we saw, were divided
into groups, and we went through a variety of rooms in which they were
domiciled, and were allowed to converse freely with them all. This is
one of the largest slave markets in the United States, and is the great
place from which the South is supplied. There are, in this place, five
of these pens where slaves are kept on sale, and, judging from this one,
they are very clean and comfortable. But these pens give one a much more
revolting idea of the institution than seeing the slaves in regular
service. There was one family of a man and his wife and four little
children, the price of "the lot" being _$_3500, or 700_l._ sterling, but
neither the man nor the woman seemed to care much whether they were sold
together or not. There was one poor girl of eighteen, with a little
child of nine weeks old, who was sold, and she was to set off to-night
with her baby, for a place in the State. The slave-dealer himself was a
civil, well-spoken man, at least to us, and spoke quite freely of his
calling, but we thought he spoke harshly to the poor negroes, especially
to the man with the wife and four children.
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