Episode 187: Street Auctions and Slave Marts in Antebellum Charleston by Charleston Time Machine published on 2021-01-22T19:24:36Z Auctions of enslaved people were a familiar sight on the streets of early Charleston until local authorities sought to constrain such spectacles into enclosed “marts” during the second quarter of the 19th century. This commercial change endured into the era of Civil War, but historic documents illustrating this form of human trafficking are not always what they purport to be. Genre Storytelling