USA - "Sold down the river"

The river in the saying "Sold down the river" is the Mississippi but the saying generally refers to the sale and movement of slaves from northern Southern States like Virginia to those further south. As with everything even for slaves there were good places to be and places you dreaded being sent to. Life in the tobacco plantations of Virginia was hard but with a more temperate climate etc was better than the rice and cotton plantations further south. Therefore if you were on the tobacco plantations and repeatedly misbehaved or tried to escape being "sold down the river" was an effective punishment.

The United States prohibited the import of slaves from Africa in 1807 but slavery continued until 1865. In the intervening period there was a domestic slave trade and today I have been to the Old Slave Mart in Charleston where they were bought and sold.  The very nice and knowledgeable lady at the welcome desk, did, however, make a point of saying "This museum is part of your history as well you know."

When we think of slavery we usually think of people toiling on sugar or cotton plantations, outside in the open but here in Charleston as with many southern cities there was also urban slavery. The gentry ran their houses in exactly the same way as their counterparts in Britain so they needed butlers, footman, parlour maids, cooks, scullery maids etc etc - the difference here was that instead of employing someone, you bought them.  There were therefore people that owned hundreds of slaves but others that only had one or two. This afternoon I went to the Aiken-Rhett House which had a typical urban upstairs/downstairs set up but obviously not quite what we would see in the UK.

Interestingly they still had this thing with painting plaster to look like stone, marble and wood. Here it was noticeable because the paint was peeling on the walls of the "marble" staircase!

Today is my last day in Charleston and tomorrow I start the long journey home with an all day train trip north to Washington DC.