Old Slave Mart, African American history museum in Charleston, United States.
The Old Slave Mart is a brick building at 6 Chalmers Street in Charleston, measuring 67 by 19 feet, with a stuccoed facade facing the cobblestone street. Its front has 20-foot octagonal pillars at each end around a central elliptical arch, now filled by an iron gate. Inside, a 20-foot ceiling rises over a first floor later divided into three rooms, with a second floor added in 1878.
Thomas Ryan and James Marsh opened Ryan's Mart in 1856, after Charleston banned public slave auctions; the lot held a four-story barracoon, a kitchen and a morgue. In 1859 auction master Z. B. Oakes bought the site and built this gallery, where an auction table stood just inside the arch. Auctions ran until about 1863, and Union troops freed those still held here in February 1865. The museum has operated on and off since 1938.
The site preserves testimonies from the era of enslavement through personal belongings, written accounts, and recreated spaces showing how enslaved people lived and worked. Visitors encounter names, faces, and stories of families who were separated and sold in Charleston.
The entrance arch with its iron gate opens onto cobblestone-paved Chalmers Street, a narrow lane between Queen and Market streets. Inside, the former auction hall is a single tall space; a second floor added in 1878 is reached by stairs. The lot behind the building, once holding the barracoon and kitchen, is now a parking lot.
The auction table stood just inside the arched doorway, 3 feet high and 10 feet long. Behind the building, where the four-story barracoon and kitchen once stood, there is now a parking lot. In 2018 the College of Charleston bought 47 boxes of the museum's early documents for $5,400.
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