"
Williams, though himself not a slave by virtue of the fact that his
grandmother was an Indian, was considered a good judge of healthy
slaves, those who would prove profitable to their owners, so he often
accompanied slave purchasers to the Baltimore slave markets.
He told of having been taken by a certain slave master to the Baltimore
wharf, boarded a boat and after the slave dealer and the captain
negotiated a deal, he, Williams, not realizing that he was being used as
a decoy, led a group of some thirty or forty blacks, men, women and
children, through a dark and dirty tunnel for a distance of several
blocks to a slave market pen, where they were placed on the auction
block.
He was told to sort of pacify the black women who set up a wail when
they were separated from their husbands and children. It was a pitiful
sight to see them, half naked, some whipped into submission, cast into
slave pens surrounded by iron bars. A good healthy negro man from 18 to
30 would bring from $200 to $800. Women would bring about half the price
of the men. Often when the women parted with their children and loved
ones, they would never see them again.
Such conditions as existed in the Baltimore slave markets, which were
considered the most important in the country, and the subsequent ill
treatment of the unfortunates, hastened the war between the states.
The increasing numbers of free negroes also had much to do with causing
the civil war.
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