"The Human Marketplace" by Carl Brown

Medium: Brushed Acrylic on 16x20 Stretched Canvas

http://www.cbrownartprints.com/

For 246 years the dreaded institution of slavery carved a deep and ugly scar into the fabric of American morality. In 1655, the first slave auction too place in New Amsterdam, today known as New York City, but it came into prominence in the southern "Cotton Belt" states.

The black captives were kidnapped, inchained and shipped thousands of miles away from their African homeland and families, with no regard to their God given right to freedom. They were placed on the auction block and sold as human chattel to the highest bidder.

Husbands, wives and children were auctioned away never to see each other again; destined to live a horrendous life of degradation, inhumane treatment and forced servitude. Families devastated forever.

More tragically, in several incidences, the black captives were being shipped directly from West Africa, unloaded and then placed directly onto the auction block. Fresh off the ship, confused, malnourished and weak from the long and cruel journey, they did not understand the language, the culture, or the full measure of what was set before them.

                                                                                                   Written by Carl G. Brown