Activists fight to memorialize site of largest slave auction in American history (Savannah: sale)

[CastletonSnob1]

I was watching PBS Newshour, when I saw an interesting segment in the Savannah area. A group of activists want to memorialize a place called The Weeping Time, where the largest single auction of enslaved people in the history of the United States took place.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQB9J8q66PI

Where do you stand on this issue?

[CoastalGAGuy]

I think the City Council actually has it right on this one. According to this report, The Weeping Time occurred at a slightly different location, which is now private commercial property. There are many other forgotten horrific occurrences where, cumulatively speaking, even greater atrocities of this nature happened. Day after day for many, many years, African slaves were sold at auction in Wright Square, which is now a place of much commercialization and little commemoration to those events. Not trying to equate the sale of 436 vs. countless thousands, but it does provide some food for thought. In general, we've done a pretty poor job of documenting and memorializing the slave trade pretty much everywhere.

[masonbauknight]

Originally Posted by CoastalGAGuy

I think the City Council actually has it right on this one. According to this report, The Weeping Time occurred at a slightly different location, which is now private commercial property. There are many other forgotten horrific occurrences where, cumulatively speaking, even greater atrocities of this nature happened. Day after day for many, many years, African slaves were sold at auction in Wright Square, which is now a place of much commercialization and little commemoration to those events. Not trying to equate the sale of 436 vs. countless thousands, but it does provide some food for thought. In general, we've done a pretty poor job of documenting and memorializing the slave trade pretty much everywhere.

Agree 100%. As a major seaport, market town and 6th-largest city in the South (1860 Census), Savannah was Georgia's largest center of the slave trade. Charleston (the South's premier port and 2nd-largest city after New Orleans) had perhaps the biggest southern trade of all, but it has preserved and restored those slaving roots. Until quite recently, the guides of most Savannah city house tours referred to Savannah's slaves as "the servants," the old euphemism used by Savannahians who kept Civil War journals (ex., Josephine Habersham, Ebb Tide 1863, UGA Press 1958, repr. paperback 2009). Savannah is now a major national attraction, and receiving more international visitors every year, so commemorating such a big part of its pre-Civil War history -- and economy -- is long overdue.

From an old City-Data post (April 2014) from the late, great poster of the Savannah Forum, Newsboy, who passed away in 2020:

Originally Posted by Newsboy

I was going to post this under the "what they're saying about Savannah" thread, but after reading it all the way through I clearly realized that wouldn't do it justice.

This is exactly what it says it is: a reprint of an 1859 report on a huge Savannah slave auction, that appeared in Horace Greeley's famous New York Tribune. It's both horrific and beautiful -- a well-written and fascinating eyewitness account of an era that too many folks are still in denial about.

THE FINAL TALLY: 429 men, women and children sold.
THE FINAL TAKE: $303,850 -- $6.7 million in today's dollars.

Let us never forget the sins of our past. Let us always strive to make the future brighter for all mankind.

America's Black Holocaust Museum | A 1859 Slave Auction in Savannah, as Reported by the New York Tribune