To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade

FAIN: GI-50644-14

Library of Virginia (Richmond, VA 23219-1905)
Barbara C. Batson (Project Director: August 2013 to September 2016)

Implementation of a traveling and an online exhibition, educational workshops, and a one-day symposium examining the American domestic slave trade through the paintings and engravings of British artist Eyre Crowe (1824-1901).

"To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade" is an exploration of the visual and material culture of the American domestic slave trade captured through the paintings and illustrations created by British artist Eyre Crowe based on his 1853 visit to Richmond's slave market. Crowe's works captured the complexities and pathos of American slavery and the internal slave trade. "To Be Sold" uses Crowe's works as the basis to explore Virginia's role as a mass exporter of enslaved people through the Richmond market to the Lower South and the inner workings of the market itself--the most profitable economic activity in terms of gross receipts in Virginia and possibly the nation. "To Be Sold" is the first exhibition to explore and examine the development of the visual and material culture of the internal slave trade. The project is comprised of a traveling exhibition (January 2015-March 2016), a one-day, two-site webcast symposium, and a catalog.

Associated Products

To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade (Exhibition)
Title: To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade
Curator: Maurie D. McInnis
Abstract: The Library of Virginia has received a grant for $100,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities for To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade, the first exhibition to examine the development of the visual culture and material world of the American slave trade through art, artifacts, and documents. Grant funds will be used to implement traveling and online versions of the exhibition, educational workshops, and a one-day symposium examining the American domestic slave trade through paintings and engravings of British artist Eyre Crowe. To Be Sold will raise awareness of the scope of the domestic trade in American-born enslaved people that developed after the United States ended its participation in the international trade in 1808. The panel exhibition and programs will feature Crowe’s surviving paintings—Slaves Waiting for Sale and After the Sale—which provide some of the most powerful and compelling visual evidence of the domestic slave trade in antebellum America. Virginia was the largest mass exporter of enslaved people through the Richmond market, making the trade the most important economic activity in antebellum Virginia.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMBxwRsuTIgikBGdpXQX70SiDlObcwJvU
Primary URL Description: On March 21, 2015, the Library of Virginia, the Historic New Orleans Collection, and the Midlo Center sponsored a one-day, two-city symposium, To Be Sold: The American Slave Trade from Virginia to New Orleans. Funding was provided by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Secondary URL: http://http://https://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/exhibits/show/to-be-sold
Secondary URL Description: An Omeka-based version of the exhibition

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