Slave Transportation to Montgomery, Alabama
Posted by: 
hoteltwo
N 32° 22.871 W 086° 18.790
16S E 564605 N 3582895
Marker describes how the nearby Alabama River and the local trains were used to transport slaves to Montgomery in the 1800's.
Waymark Code: WMJP3M
Location: Alabama, United States
Date Posted: 12/11/2013
Views: 5
Inscription:
In order to meet the high demand for slaves in Alabama in the early 1800s, slave traders chained African Americans together in coffles and forced them to march hundreds of miles from the upper South to the lower South, including Montgomery. The overland transportation of enslaved people by foot was slow and expensive. By the 1840s, slave traders began to take advantage of two new modes of transportation: the steamboat and the railroad. Steamboats carried slaves from Mobile and New Orleans up the Alabama River to Montgomery. Rail routes constructed with slave labor connected Montgomery’s train station to West Point, Georgia, and lines extending to the upper South. Hundreds of enslaved people began arriving by rail and by boat each day in Montgomery, turning the city into a principal slave trading center in Alabama. Enslaved people who arrived at the riverfront or at the train station were paraded up Commerce Street to be sold in the city’s slave markets.
Marker Name: Slave Transportation to Montgomery
Marker Type: Urban
Addtional Information::
Erected by the Black Heritage Council, Equal Justice Initiative and the Alabama Historical Commission.
Date Dedicated / Placed: 2013
Marker Number: Not Listed
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Visit Instructions:
Please post a photo of you OR your GPS at the marker location. Also if you know of any additional links not already mentioned about this bit of Alabama history please include that in your log.