Sale Splintering The Family

While visiting Wilmington, North Carolina, Elkanah Walton (a white man) witnessed the sale of a slave family. He noted, "I witnessed a heart-rending spectacle, the sale of a negro family under the sheriff's hammer. They were driven from the country, like swine for the market. A poor wench (woman) clung to a little daughter and implored that they might be supported with the most agonizing supplication. Still, alas, the master of circumstances were inexorable-they were sold to different purchasers. The husband and residue of the family were knocked off to the highest bidder." 

In slavery, there were several unnatural reasons yet societal norms to be without family. Some enslaved people lost their families for life, either due to death or sold in the deep south (downriver). Some enslaved people lost their families for a shorter duration of time. When enslaved people were hired out, they could go without seeing their family for months or years, both of which were dreadful experiences.

New Year's Day for many was "laden with sorrows." On New Year's Eve, enslaved people gathered their few possessions to await their fate on New Year's Day at the appointed grounds. Not only was it a day where many were hired out to mostly unknown parts, but it was also a day of sales. Harriet Jacobs recalled seeing a mother of seven children march to the auction block and witness each of her children being sold to different parties. She noted, "Before night, her children were all far away. She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this he refused to do."

In slavery, a master's financial struggles could be affected by weather, illness, bacteria, disease, other living creatures, or bad timing. This, in turn, could spark the fear of sale and possibly an eventual sale. As a result, many slaveholders, whether those on a major plantation or a smallholding, rode the wave of credit, growth, loss, and debt. Beyond sale for speculation and profit, debt and death of a slaveholder were among the greatest forces that divided enslaved families.

We see examples of debt sales in North Carolina petitions. For instance, the administrator of the estate of William C. Brooks, deceased, asked to sell the slaves belonging to the estate and pay off the debts. See petition HERE. Another example shows that the administrator of the estate of Ivey K. Gibbs, David Gibbs, asked to sell a slave to satisfy debts. See petition HERE

Speaking on the sale of enslaved people, William Singleton said,

 "Such breaking up of families and parting of children from their parents was quite common in slavery days and was one of the things that caused much bitterness among the slaves and much suffering, because the slaves were as fond of their children as the white folks. But nothing could be done about it, for the law said we were only things and so we had no more rights under the law than animals."

William Singleton himself was sold away and separated from his parents in this manner:

"One day when I was about four years old a strange man came to this central house where all us children were and asked me if I liked candy. I told him yes. So he gave me a striped stick of candy. Then he asked me if I liked him. I said, yes, sir, because he had given me the candy. There was a colored woman with him and he asked me then how I would like to go and live with him. Of course I did not know him nor the woman, but without saying any more the man took me away with him and gave me to the strange woman who took me to Atlanta, Georgia, and delivered me to a white woman who had bought me."

By and large, the price for a slave increased throughout the antebellum period, which was a major reason for the sale of enslaved people. Although North Carolina is characterized as a small slaveholding state, the state heavily participated in the domestic slave trade (which comprised selling slaves to the deeper south in states such as Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas). Moreover, as many slaveholders of North Carolina were not investors but speculators (wanting to take advantage of the increase in the price of slaves), the increased price of a slave and the domestic slave trade before and after the panic of 1837 allowed these speculators to gain profits from the sale of slaves. 

Slave Family Divided by Petition