The Nashville Slave Market

Preceding the Civil War, this space, stretching from the intersection of 4th Avenue, North and Charlotte Avenue to the Public Square was the center of the slave trade in Nashville. The slave brokers that lined this thoroughfare provided prospective buyers reliable access to enslaved blacks whom they bought, sold, or traded for their own use or resale in other areas of the Deep South. Prior to the Civil War, slave auctions were comon occurrences at these brokerage houses, the marketplace, courthouse, and often produced scenes where enslavers dehumanized, valuated, and commodified people of African descent. Continued This area was home to the institutions that were an integral part of the enslavement in Tennessee: banks that loaned planters money needed to buy the enslaved; hardware stores that provided farming tools, clothing, and firms that protected the planters' investments in their enslaved human chattel. The slave trade played a vital role in the city's economic development during the 19th century. This growth came as the result of daily, weekly, and constant emotional trauma for the families who endured the slave trade.