Olde Time Store

"Slavery in the Civil War Era"

http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm

This documentary photo was taken in Georgia in 1864, just when the Civil War in America was slowly coming to an end. This picture is representational of a small town shopping area, but what sticks out is the store that says "Auction & Negro Sales." The entire picture captures a historic moment in U.S. history when the south was still engaged in the buying and selling of slaves. This practice was most common in the south (like Georgia) and was a main factor in the start of the civil war between the free-states of the north and the slave-states of the south. The Civil War did not end until 1865 and even then it took years for slavery to finally end in the south, so it is possible that this store for auctioning/selling slaves to white plantation owners was still in use.

What makes this photo so striking is the photographers use of direct approach and setting. The picture is taken in a straight-forward manner so that it looks like a normal street of stores. The setting is also that of a little street shopping area that has multiple town stores. The normalcy of all that provides a striking contrast to the store in the middle that auctions off slaves. In this day and age, seeing a setting like this is quite shocking. One would not expect to see a slavery store in the middle of a little shopping area. But that is what makes this photo so striking; it seems so normal yet it portrays a dark scar in U.S. history. At the same time, there seems to be a glimmer of hope in this picture. It looks as though there is barely anyone there, which could possibly mean that the sale of slaves has slowed down and possibly stopped all together. The fact that the foreground is so empty leads the viewer to believe this. Another characteristic of this photo that could lead a viewer to believe the slave auctions have ended at this location is the man that is sitting in front of the store. He is centered in the picture, but is small so he is hard to see at first, but once he is seen it appears as though he is a black man. If this is true, it shows the change that the Civil War caused by contrasting a free black man sitting in front of a store that use to sell blacks.

Overall, this representational/documentary photograph of a slave auction store in Georgia in 1864 represents a dark scar in America's past and provides a striking contrast between the normalcy of a shopping area to the atrocity of slave auctions.