Slave Auction 1853-- Richmond, VA        By 1859 Pierce  Butler was no longer America's richest man.  At age 52, he had squandered the fortune inherited from his grandfather. Following the spectacle of his very public and very expensive divorce from English actress Fanny Kemble in 1849, gambling, and "bad investments," Butler declared bankruptcy in 1857.  His bankruptcy administrators  forced the immediate sale of his magnificent mansion in Philadelphia for $30,000.     It wasn't enough.      Now, all that was left to sell were the 436 human beings he held in slavery on two plantations in Georgia.      It would be the largest slave auction ever held in America.      Jonathan Bryan, a notorious slave dealer, was hired to run the auction. Bryan printed a catalogue of the "goods to be auctioned"  much as an auction house might publish a catalogue, listing paintings, jewelry or furniture to ...

  This photo of harvesting cotton was obviously taken long after 1828 but not a thing had changed         The following is courtesy of the South Carolina Historical Society An essay on slave management by the overseer of the Butler Plantations.  Contrast this description with Fanny Kemble's in 1838 several years after her husband, Pearce Butler took over. THE SOUTHERN AGRICULTURIST DECEMBER, 1828                                       PART I                 ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE ART. I -- On the Management of the BUTLER Estate, and the Cultivation of the Sugar Cane; by R. King, Jr. addressed to William Washington, Esq.                [COMMUNICATED FOR THE SOUTHERN AGRICULTURALIST.]                             ...