LOCATION FILE

Old Slave Mart Museum

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Charleston, SC

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HAUNTING / GHOSTBuilt 1859; auctions until 1863Museum (former slave auction site)PUBLICDOCUMENTEDLEGEND

OVERVIEW

The only known surviving building of a Charleston slave auction complex. After the city banned public sales in 1856, Thomas Ryan built this enclosed mart on Chalmers Street, where enslaved men, women, and children were bought and sold until 1863. It is now a museum, operated by the City of Charleston, that documents the domestic slave trade and the lives of the enslaved.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The museum treats this first as a site of profound human suffering; staff and visitors sometimes describe an oppressive heaviness in the auction room, and the building carries a long-standing reputation in local accounts as a place where that history feels present.

VISITING

Open to the public as a museum; a place of remembrance to be approached with respect.

SITE PLAN

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EXTERNAL RESOURCES

Curated references and articles coming soon.

INVESTIGATION RECORD

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COMMUNITY EVIDENCE

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GROUP FINDINGS

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