These slave auctions were the only public places where the primary social formation of the South cropped out sharply. I attended them frequently, as the best school for "studying southern institutions, southern society, and the character and sentiments of the southern people."
I remember one in which eighty slaves were sold, one after another. A second, at which twenty-one negroes were disposed of, I reported, in extenso, from notes written upon blank cards in my pocket during its progress. Of course, it was not safe to make any memoranda openly.
The auction was in the great bar-room of the St. Charles Hotel, a spacious, airy octagonal apartment, with a circular range of Ionic columns. The marble bar, covering three sides of the room, was doing a brisk business. Three perturbed tapsters were bustling about to supply with fluids the bibulous crowd, which by no means did its spiriting gently.
The negroes stood in a row, in front of the auctioneer's platform, with numbered tickets pinned upon their coats and frocks. Thus, a young woman with a baby in her arms, who rolled his great white eyes in astonishment, was ticketed "No. 7." Referring to the printed list, I found this description:
"7. Betty, aged 15 years, and child 4 months, No. 1 field-hand and house-servant, very likely. Fully guaranteed."
In due time, Betty and her boy were bid off for $1,165.
Sale of a White Girl.
Those already sold were in a group at the other end of the platform. One young woman, in a faded frock and sun-bonnet, and wearing gold ear-rings, had straight brown hair, hazel eyes, pure European features, and a very light complexion. I was unable to detect in her face the slightest trace of negro lineage. Her color, features, and movements were those of an ordinary country girl of the white working class in the South. A by-stander assured me that she was sold under the hammer, just before I entered. She associated familiarly with the negroes, and left the room with them when the sale was concluded; but no one would suspect, under other circumstances, that she was tinged with African blood.
The spectators, about two hundred in number, were not more than one-tenth bidders. There were planters from the interior, with broad shoulders and not unpleasing faces; city merchants, and cotton factors; fast young men in pursuit of excitement, and strangers attracted by curiosity.
Among the latter was a spruce young man in the glossiest of broadcloth, and the whitest of linen, with an unmistakable Boston air. He lounged carelessly about, and endeavored to look quite at ease, but made a very brilliant failure. His restless eye and tell-tale countenance indicated clearly that he was among the Philistines for the first time, and held them in great terror.