Cash! Highest Price for Men, Women & Children 1835

Brutal slave trader advertisement from Charleston, dated May 7, 1835, with the bold headline "CASH!" announcing that Thomas Griggs would pay the "HIGHEST PRICE FOR Men, Women, & CHILDREN." The poster solicits slaveholders to sell their enslaved people, promising that "All persons that have SLAVES to dispose of, will do well by giving me a call" and directing sellers to Hill's tavern or Shannon Hill. The casual commercial language—"dispose of," "highest price," "promptly attended to"—treats human beings as commodities to be bought and sold for profit. This advertisement documents the domestic slave trade that continued to traffic enslaved people within the United States even after the international slave trade was banned in 1808. The emphasis on cash payment shows the purely economic nature of slavery, where human lives were reduced to dollar amounts. A chilling document of America's original sin, available in three sizes with your choice of black or silver aluminum frame.