"The Auction Block"

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   See the ADS-L archives for Jesse Sheidlower's query about "auction block."
   This is from a display at the Cape Coast Castle here in Ghana:

      THE AUCTION BLOCK
   Within the Untied States enslaved people were sold in a variety of settings: on actual action blocks platforms; in front of buildings, especially taverns; inside buildings with people penned in jail-like cells; and on ship jetties and boat slips.  "The Auction Block" was only sometimes a literal block, mostly it was a metaphor for the awful experience of being exhibited like an animal, examined and purchased by other human beings as a form of property.  Whether on a block or in a street, the terrible personal humilation and the terror of separation from family, friends, and country made this a brutal experience.