The slaves whom the dealers preferred to buy for distant sale were “likely negroes from ten to thirty years old."[27] Faithfulness and skill in husbandry were of minor importance, for the trader could give little proof of them to his patrons.  Demonstrable talents in artisanry would of course enhance a man’s value; and unusual good looks on the part of a young woman might stimulate the bidding of men interested in concubinage.  Episodes of the latter sort were occasionally reported; but in at least one instance inquiry on the spot showed that sex was not involved.  This was the case of the girl Sarah, who was sold to the highest bidder on the auction block in the rotunda of the St. Louis Hotel at New Orleans in 1841 at a price of eight thousand dollars.  The onlookers were set agog, but a newspaper man promptly found that the sale had been made as a mere form in the course of litigation and that the bidding bore no relation to the money which was to change hands.[28] Among the thousands of bills of sale which the present writer has scanned, in every quarter of the South, many have borne record of exceptional prices for men, mostly artisans and “drivers”; but the few women who brought unusually high prices were described in virtually every case as fine seamstresses, parlor maids, laundresses, hotel cooks, and the like.  Another indication against the multiplicity of purchases for concubinage is that the great majority of the women listed in these records were bought in family groups.  Concubinage itself was fairly frequent, particularly in southern Louisiana; but no frequency of purchases for it as a predominant purpose can be demonstrated from authentic records.

[Footnote 27:  Advertisement in the Western Carolinian (Salisbury, N. C), July 12, 1834.]

[Footnote 28:  New Orleans Bee, Oct. 16, 1841.]

Some of the dealers used public jails, taverns and warehouses for the assembling of their slaves, while others had stockades of their own.  That of Franklin and Armfield at Alexandria, managed by the junior member of the firm, was described by a visitor in July, 1835.  In addition to a brick residence and office, it comprised two courts, for the men and women respectively, each with whitewashed walls, padlocked gates, cleanly barracks and eating sheds, and a hospital which at this time had no occupants.  In the men’s yards “the slaves, fifty or sixty in number, were standing or moving about in groups, some amusing themselves with rude sports, and others engaged in conversation which was often interrupted by loud laughter in all the varied tones peculiar to negroes.”  They were mostly young men, but comprised a few boys of from ten to fifteen years old.  In the women’s yard the ages ranged similarly, and but one woman had a young child.  The slaves were neatly dressed in clothes from a tailor shop within the walls, and additional clothing was already stored ready to be sent with the coffle and issued to its members at the