Skip to main content
Go back

No different than livestock

On the left, an announcement of a public auction for the sale of 440 slaves; in the center, an offer to purchase slaves at a price ranging from $1,200 to $1,250 each; and on the right, a wanted notice offering a $400 bounty for the capture, dead or alive, of a slave named George.

Credits: from left to right, a slave sale ad published by the Savannah Daily Morning News on February 26, 1859; an advertising montage published July 2, 1852 in Lexington, KY; Ran Away, an announcement that appeared in the Boston Gazette circa 1750.

On the left, an announcement of a public auction for the sale of 440 slaves; in the center, an offer to purchase slaves at a price ranging from $1,200 to $1,250 each; and on the right, a wanted notice offering a $400 bounty for the capture, dead or alive, of a slave named George.