A Brief History
On March 3, 1859, the largest sale of African slaves in the United States came to a sad conclusion near Savannah, Georgia when the last slaves formerly owned by plantation owner Pierce Mease Butler (1807/10-1867) were sold in order for Butler to satisfy his considerable debts. Known to history as The Great Slave Auction or alternatively as The Weeping Time, a total of 436 human beings were sold like pieces of property. Soon, the US Civil War would be fought, and slavery would end in the United States, preventing any such future crimes against humanity such as this mass slave sale.
Digging Deeper
Butler was the grandson of a Philadelphia man who had amassed a fortune owning numerous plantations with hundreds of slaves working the fields. These plantations were spread out throughout the Southern United States where slavery was legal. Pierce M. Butler was more or less a ne’er-do-well that was an absentee landlord that did not pay close attention to his properties and frittered his money away on ill-advised gambling, risky business ventures, and lavish spending on luxuries.
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