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Charleston was the single most important slave port in the United States. The large number of slaves in the city created the urban landscapes of the historic South. In Charleston in 1848, 72 percent of slaves working in the city were used as house servants, and 46 percent of the laboring slaves were female domestics. Many black slaveowners hired out their slaves to white households, which may or may not have owned slaves themselves. Slaves sold from several hundred to thousand dollars.
Agricultural slaves that cost $1,000 in Alabama in 1850 would cost $40,000 at today's prices. Today, slaves are still being bought illegally in many countries but for as little as $90! An estimated 27 million slaves worldwide -- twice the number of people taken from Africa during the 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade. Go to the Anti-Slavery web site.
Occupations of black slaveholders in Charleston 1850:
19 percent of colored tailors owned slaves
26 percent of Negro barbers owned slaves
27 percent of black butchers owned slaves
Slaves were skilled workers. This tradition is maintained today by Blacks, such as Phillip Simmons, a well-known blacksmith, who has created hundreds of iron gates in Charleston and one for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.
Mulattos dominated the slaveowning class of blacks. Although
the free mulatto community represented 49 percent of the free black population,
they composed 83 percent of the Afro-American slaveowners from South
Carolina
in 1850. Dark-skinned masters accounted for only15 percent of all black
slaveowners. Many of the mulattos were the offsprings of white planters and
merchants who provided them with slaves when they freed them. These
lighter-colored blacks held a privileged status, higher than dark-colored
freed slaves and dark slaves, but lower than whites, slaveowners or not.
Most of the mulattos earned enough money to purchase their own slaves. Whites
preferred deal with mulattos because doing so allowed them to accumulate
more wealth
than dark-colored free blacks.
Slave
markets
In 1856, a city ordinance prohibited the selling of
slaves on the north side of the U.S. Customs House. Thereafter, slaves were
sold in "sales rooms," "yards," or "marts," in many places in the city.
The Ryan Mart was established in 1852:
the offices faced the street, and the yard contained the barracoons
(Portuguese for "jail") and the auction block. Slave
graves (identified by the use of the first name only) can still be
seen in the city's cemetery.
Many of Charleston's finest homes were not only built by slaves but also by the wealth the slave trade produced for these slave merchants.
Source: Personal tour by Alphonso Brown, Gullah Tours, Charleston.
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