JF Ptak Science Books Post 2830
One of the most striking news items I found while browsing a volume of the newspaper The Independent1 was on the front page of the very first issue of this volume--a very strong, emotional, reaching-for-irony anti-slavery article reporting on the largest single slave sale in the history of the U.S
The publisher, Joseph H. Richards, was one of three people (including Pettengill and Tubbs) who in mid-1859 conceived and implemented the idea of bringing Abraham Lincoln to NYC to deliver a paid lecture. After much correspondence and delay Lincoln would lecture at what would be known as his famous and campaign-heightening Cooper Union speech in late February 1859. The newspaper was an eight-page weekly and was very strongly anti-slavery, its pages filled with Abolitionist writing. Henry Ward Beecher was given space for a sermon/lecture in nearly every issue for the volume that I have—Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Greenleaf Whittier were listed as special correspondents in the masthead.
The article, “The Great Slave Sale at Savannah2”(the sale itself also referred to as “the Weeping Time”) appeared on 10 March 1859, about a week after the two-day event was held in a driving rain at the Ten Broeck Race Course, about two miles west of downtown Savannah. The slaves were the “property” of Pierce Mease3 (1810-1867), a profligate Georgia aristocrat who led himself to ruin, the slave sale intended to restore his economic condition. The sale was held at a race track
I imagine that The Independent sent an undercover correspondent (much like for Horace Greeley did for the New York Tribune) to cover the event—or perhaps not; I can't tell for sure....there is enough detail to make you think that this was information not taken from some other newspaper source; I just can't tell. In any event these reporters would not have been welcomed at the auction, and could have been dealt with as spies or infiltrators, or worse.
The pseudonymous reporter (the article signed “T.T”) notices the details of those in charge of the proceedings, some of the aspects of the crowd, though mostly the descriptions are focused on the poor people waiting to be sold...and then, mostly that on the children, and the infirmed.
I've reproduced the article below--so far as I can tell this has not been reproduced anywhere else.
“The event was reported extensively in the Northern Press and reaction to the sale deepened the nation's growing sectional divide”, states a respectful if not understated and mundane historical marker (placed 149 years later) at the sale's location, the text attributed to the Georgia Historical Society. At least the state of Georgia chose to officially recognize the place and donated a small remembrance park to it, which is still steps ahead of, say, Washington D.C. where at least two of the "slave pens" that were very nearly on the National Mall are still not officially recognized by a marker.
Notes:
- The Independent1, March 10, 1859. "The Independent was founded by the Broadway Tabernacle Church as an anti-slavery newspaper. The original Broadway Tabernacle, now known as Broadway United Church of Christ, was founded as the Second Free Presbyterian Church, organized in 1832 by Lewis Tappan for Charles Grandison Finney, a famous evangelist / revivalist from western New York.”--Wikipedia
- “The Great Slave Auction (also called The Weeping Time) was a March 2 and 3, 1859 sale of enslaved Africans held at Ten Broeck Race Course, near Savannah, Georgia. Slaveholder and absentee plantation owner Pierce Mease Butler authorized the sale of approximately 436 men, women, children, and infants to be sold over the course of two days. The sale's proceeds went to satisfy Butler's significant debts, much of it from gambling. The auction is regarded as the largest single sale of enslaved people in U.S. history.”-Wikipedia
- . “... inherited two plantations in the Sea Islands of Georgia from his wealthy Southern family; one on Butler Island, and another on St. Simon Island. Both lands were worked by slaves.” https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/slaveowners_civil_war/1/
There's a fine article by Kristopher Monroe in The Atlantic about the event: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/the-weeping-time/374159/
Full article, follows:
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