October 30, 2014
Civil War- era photograph of an interior area of the former Franklin and Armfield “slave pen.” The iron gate and barred window was commented on by northern abolitionists who visited in the 1830s. This was probably a staged photograph. Notice the two Union soldiers peering through the gate.
Stories this photo appears in:
Alexandria to New Orleans: The Human Tragedy of the Interstate Slave Trade, Part III
Part III: The extent of the forced separation and sale of young slave children away from their mothers has long been a vexing question, and historians have often been especially concerned with this issue. In 1931, the historian Frederick Bancroft asserted that "the selling singly of young [black slave] children privately and publicly was frequent and notorious." He added that such children were "hardly less than a staple in the [interstate slave] trade."
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