Largest Slave Sale in Georgia History

Largest Slave Sale in Georgia History is a Georgia historical marker in Chatham County, dedicated 2008.

Southwest of the intersection of Dunn Street and Augusta Road in Savannah.

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One of the largest sales of enslaved persons in U.S. history took place on March 2-3, 1859, at the Ten Broeck Race Course 1/4 mile southwest of here. To satisfy his creditors, Pierce M. Butler sold 436 men, women, and children from his Butler Island and Hampton plantations near Darien, Georgia. The breakup of families and the loss of home became part of African-American heritage remembered as "the weeping time." The event was reported extensively in the northern press and reaction to the sale deepened the nation's growing sectional divide in the years immediately preceding the Civil War.

TodayHistorical map

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Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library

Historical maps covering this location

1852 · Georgia, Florida. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1856 · Georgia. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1863 · Sketch of sea coast of South Carolina and Georgia from Bull's Bay to Ossabaw Sound (Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library)
1864 · Colton's Georgia (1864) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1874 · Plache VII. Sea Islands. (Carolina du Sud). (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Plache VII. Sea Islands. (Carolina du Sud), 1874, covering the location of Largest Slave Sale in Georgia History, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Plache VII. Sea Islands. (Carolina du Sud), 1874, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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This historical marker is part of the Georgia Historical Marker Program and was erected by the Georgia Historical Society. Marker texts and locations come from the Society's own marker database.

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