Museum object · Slavery and Freedom Objects
Broadside for an auction of enslaved persons at the Charleston courthouse
1859
Charleston, Charleston County, South Carolina, United States, North and Central America
Source catalog description
This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.
A broadside advertising a court-ordered slave of enslaved persons at the courthouse in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 10, 1859. The paper is printed in black ink with hand-written annotations along columns printed with the first names and ages of ninety-nine [99] enslaved men, women, and children. The names are numbered and grouped together into subsets. Large printed text at top reads, [UNDER DECREE IN EQUITY. / SANDERS vs. SANDERS, et al]. The handwritten notations make remarks like "healthy," "very fine," "sold privately," "dead," "shot in leg," "breeding," "leg broke," "lost a toe," "white," and "mostly white.
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Sources & collection details
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — original record ↗
Catalog metadata · CC0 · Source checked 2026-10-13
Catalog reference: 2010.21.3
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