Directions: 

Laight St., Canal St., and Varick St.

New York, New York 

United States

The Slave Market : Wall Street is an Augmented Reality sculpture installation that presents the 1711 slave market in New York City where enslaved Africans and Native Americans were sold.  Artist Marcus Brown created the artwork to represent the market  and the enslaved peoples in it. The purpose of this artwork is to provide representation for the enslaved people that were sold at the site. This installation is a part of a larger decentralized memorial to slavery called Slavery Trails. Slavery Trails is a musically interactive augmented reality installation series based on slave ships and enslaved people, placed on historical sites throughout the United States.  Slavery Trails is an effort by artist Marcus Brown to create a decentralized memorial to slavery in the United States. 

- https://arslaverytrails.com/

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=228448

Albert Capsouto Park NYCPARKS Website 

Thank you to the many scholars and people who brought attention to these sites. 

In 1711, New York was growing quickly, and the growing needs of the city were often supplied by slave labor. Nearly 1,000 out of about 6,400 New Yorkers were black, and at least 40 percent of the white households included a slave. In these homes, enslaved workers cooked, washed, sewed, hauled water, emptied the chamber pots, swept out the fireplaces and the chimneys, and cared for the children. Along the East River they built, loaded, and unloaded, the ships. They cleared the land uptown, and then planted and harvested the crops.  And up and down the narrow streets they pedaled their master’s goods and even supplied the city’s first fast foods—fresh oysters and steaming hot corn on the cob. As the number of slaves imported into the city soared, barrel makers, butchers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and tin workers began to purchase young enslaved men in order to teach them their trades. Typically, when a slave owner ran out of work, they hired their slaves out at half the rate of free labor. Often the slaves themselves were sent out to find work. In a time when fear of a slave uprising was ever-present, the sight of so many enslaved men walking the streets looking to be hired caused alarm. Fearful white citizens began to complain. They demanded a market where slaves could be hired, bought, and sold. Finally, on December 13, 1711, the City Council passed a law “that all Negro and Indian slaves that are let out to hire…be hired at the Market house at the Wall Street Slip…” This market, known as the Meal Market (because grains were sold there), was located at the foot of Wall Street on the East River. It was the city’s first slave market. This entry contributed by Curriculum Concepts International  as found on https://maap.columbia.edu/place/22.html 

Information from MAAP https://maap.columbia.edu/

https://maap.columbia.edu/place/22.html

Wall Street Slave Market Columbia.edu