To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade

This groundbreaking exhibition will explore the pivotal role that Richmond played in the domestic slave trade. Curated by University of Virginia professor Maurie McGinnis, To Be Sold will draw from her recent book, Waiting to Be Sold: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade, and be anchored by a series of paintings and engravings by Eyre Crowe, a British artist who witnessed the slave trade as he traveled across the United States in 1853. This internal trade accounted for the largest forced migration of people in the United States, moving as many as two million people from the Upper South to the Cotton South. Virginia was the largest mass exporter of enslaved people through the Richmond market, making the trade the most important economic activity in antebellum Virginia. This exhibition will not be merely a story of numbers and economic impact, but also one that focuses on individuals and the impact that the trade had on enslaved people.