Question/Problem 1: What was life like for slaves in the United States prior to the Civil War?

Slave Auction

The following excerpt is taken from an article that appeared in 1859 in the New York Tribune, edited by Horace Greeley. The reporter describes a large slave auction that took place in Savannah, Georgia.

The slaves remained at the race-course, some of them for more than a week and all of them for four days before the sale. They were brought in thus early that buyers who desired to inspect them might enjoy that privilege, although none of them were sold at private sale. For these preliminary days their shed was constantly visited by speculators. The negroes were examined with as little consideration as if they had been brutes indeed; the buyers pulling their mouths open to see their teeth, pinching their limbs to find how muscular they were, walking them up and down to detect any signs of lameness, making them stoop and bend in different ways that they might be certain there was no concealed rupture or wound; and in addition to all this treatment, asking them scores of questions relative to their qualifications and accomplishments. All these humiliations were submitted to without a murmur, and in some instances with good-natured cheerfulness -- where the slave liked the appearance of the proposed buyer, and fancied that he might prove a kind 'mas'r.'

From Eyewitnesses and Others--Readings in American History, Volume I: Beginnings to 1865 (Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1991), pp. 371-372.