Value of Black Bodies: In today’s money would surpass the Industries of America, There were several dozen such houses in Shockoe Bottom, typically selling human “goods” along with corn, coffee, and other commodities. Some sales were part of a larger business; other auctioneers dealt exclusively in slaves. Most slave commerce was concentrated in the roughly 30-block area bounded by Broad, 15th, and 19th Streets and the river. Davenport & Co., located at 15th and Cary streets, was an auction house near the center of the district; portions of the building survived Civil War destruction and are now a part of the present building. Located here along with the auction houses were holding pens, slave jails, and lodging for slave traders. White Richmonders generally ignored slave sales or accepted them as “normal.”

#HakiKweliShakur #ShockoeBottom #RVA

New York Daily Tribune, March 8, 1859 reprinted in Hart, Albert B., American History Told by Contemporaries v. 4 19280

“So Molly was put through her paces, and compelled to trot up and down along the stage, to go up and down the steps, and to exercise her feet in various ways, but always with the same result, the left foot would be lame. She was finally sold for $695. equivalent to approximately $15,300 in 2005 dollars

Whether she really was lame or not, no one knows but herself, but it must be remembered that to a slave a lameness, or anything that decreases his market value, is a thing to be rejoiced over. A man in the prime of life, worth $1,600 equivalent to approximately $35,200 in 2005 dollars or thereabouts, can have little hope of ever being able, by any little savings of his own, to purchase his liberty. But, let him have a rupture, or lose a limb, or sustain any other injury that renders him of much less service to his owner, and reduces his value to $300 or $400, and he may hope to accumulate that sum, and eventually to purchase his liberty. Freedom without health is infinitely sweeter than health without freedom.

And so the Great Sale went on for two long days, during which time there were sold 429 men, women and children. There were 436 announced to be sold, but a few were detained on the plantations by sickness… The total amount of the sale foots up $308, 850.” equivalent to approximately $6,700,000 in 2005 dollars

https://newafrikan77.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/auction-houses-richmond-slave-trail/

The Development of Maroonage in The South: The William Byrd II so called Founder of RVA & The Ruling Class/Colonialist of Richmond feared that importing to many Enslaved Afrikans to Virginia Would Create a New Afrikan Nation Named New Guinea Named After the West Afrikan Country Guinea 🇬🇳 They feared that Virginia had Mountains and those Mountains would be the spring for that nation by Maroons & that they would mirror the Maroons of #Jamaica !!! British Colonialist & Founder of Richmond Virginia William Byrd II was the Pro opponent against letting Afrikans take refuge in the Blue Ridge Mountains he advocated exploration of the mountains for minerals & to set up Fortifications to prevent maroons settlements to rise as they did in the mountains of Jamaica! Provisional Government - Republic of New Afrika

William Byrd II Also Didn't want the Blue Ridge Mountains to Become another Great Dismal Swamp - William Byrd II discovered when he surveyed the Virginia/Carolina boundary in 1728 that the lands along the unclear border had evolved into places that harbored runaway indentured servants and escaped slaves. Unless the officials in Williamsburg found settlers to occupy the Shenandoah Valley, the territory west of the Blue Ridge could become another "no man's land.

https://newafrikan77.wordpress.com/2017/06/27/the-development-of-maroonage-in-the-south-the-ruling-classcolonialist-feared-that-importing-to-many-enslaved-afrikans-to-virginia-would-create-a-new-nation-named-new-guinea-william-byrd-warned/