These popular landmarks in the U.S. were once slave market sites

The Trans-Atlantic slave trade which spanned 400 years saw many black people transported from Africa and sent to the Americas including the U.S to work on plantations. Before and after leaving the continent, these slaves were often sent to slave markets where they were auctioned and sold.

Today, many of these slave markets have been obscured or even totally buried by other buildings.

In 2017, Timothy Huebner, a history professor at Rhodes College in Memphis discovered that his church, Calvary Episcopal was sited a few yards away from a slave market. In fact, the church’s parking lot sits on the site. That Fall, he assigned his students to conduct research on the slave trade in Memphis.

Ultimately, they found that there was a slave yard situated on the church’s premises which was operated by Nathan Forrest Baker, whose glorifying description on a signpost did not state that he made his fortune by selling African American slaves throughout the South. He owned and operated a slave market at 87 Adam Street (now Adams Avenue) in downtown Memphis in the 1850s.

There are many other slave markets which have been replaced with new buildings while others have been preserved to keep history. Here are some slave markets in the U.S. which have been replaced by other structures.