Slave traders often did everything they could to reduce the humanity of the enslaved in exchange for their commodification. Slave traders tried to sell the people they had bought quickly, sprucing them up with makeup and fancy clothes to make them appear healthy and presentable. Separate rooms held sick enslaved men and women to avoid spreading disease. Slave traders would hire doctors to come check on the health of slaves, sometimes on a daily basis. Slave pens were realms of sale in which appearances were everything. New Orleans slave pen prisons were austere while showrooms were spacious and well decorated to accommodate the tastes of free consumers. While other cities contained slave markets to certain areas, like the section of Richmond, Virginia known as “Wall Street,” New Orleans slave auctions were scattered throughout the city. A historical marker memorializing the slave pen currently stands on the neutral ground on Esplanade Avenue.īy the time Henry Bibb and his family arrived in New Orleans the pens that held enslaved people before they were traded and sold were illegal in the quarter, but the displays that sold them during the day were not in fact, they were all around. The Bibb family languished while awaiting their fate in a slave pen similar to one that stood on the corner of Esplanade and Chartres. Bibb had previously been jailed for attempting to free his wife, Malinda, and child, Frances, from their masters. In 1839 he was shipped as chattel to New Orleans where he was held in a slave pen along with his wife Malinda and his child. Henry Bibb was born into slavery and forced to labor throughout the south. One of the most prominent slave narratives of the antebellum period, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, Written by Himself, recorded one man’s experience in a New Orleans slave pen. Slave traders forced enslaved men, women, and children to line up in the slave pens and await inspection by potential buyers. By Dahlia El-Shafei, Kate Mason, editor & Kathryn O'Dwyer, editor Textĭuring the major slave-trading season, September through May, yards surrounded by high brick walls called slave pens bustled with activity in the areas surrounding the French Quarter.
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