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PA Enslavement FAQs

A series of pages exploring various aspects of enslavement in Pennsylvania

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania Slave Sale Advertisements

Advertisements for Public Slave Auctions

Introduction

The spectacle of a public auction of enslaved people was less frequent in rural Cumberland County than in the big city of Philadelphpia, but it did occur from time to time. Unlike Philadelphia, where enslaved people were sold like livestock at public auctions, often in "lots" directly from slave ships, by slave merchants, the public auction of enslaved people in the rural counties of Pennsylvania typically occurred during a liquidation sale by the executors of an estate, or by the local sheriff to settle a legal action.

Regardless of circumstances, the experience of being placed on display in a highly public location before an assembled crowd, to be bid upon by strangers, would have been humiliating and terrifying. Any change from one enslaver to another represented uncertainty and confusion at a minimum, and when the new enslaver was a complete stranger, certainly stress and fear of an unknown future. When the humiliation of being sold at "public sale" was added, this was a horrendous solution to disposing of human property.

The Advertisements

• To be sold by public vendue,
  On FRIDAY the 24th instant, at Shippensburgh,
  TWO Houses in the street, with necessary stabling and the Lots containing them, the property of the subscriber; at the same time and place will be disposed of 150 acres of land within three quarters of a mile of the town; 70 acres of the above is cleared and under good fence; likewise 9 Negro MEN and WOMEN. Twelve months credit will be given on approved security, to the purchaser, or a longer time if required, on their paying interest.
  JAMES CISSNE,
  November 8, 1786. (The Carlisle Gazette and the Western Repository of Knowledge, 08 November 1786.)
  

• Also to be sold by public vendue on the premises on Tuesday the 27th instant a likely Negro Boy, 13 years of age, duly registered; also horses, cows, a waggon and gears, a wind-mill, and sundry other articles of houshold and farming utinsils. Twelve months credit will be given on good security, if required. Attendance will be given by CATHERINE THOMPSON, ROBERT MAGAW., Exers.
  Carlisle, March 1787. (The Carlisle Gazette and the Western Repository of Knowledge, 14 March 1787.)
  

• BY Virtue of a Writ of Fieri Facias to me directed, will be exposed to public sale, at the Court-House, in the borough of Carlisle, on Saturday the 26th insant; -- One NEGRO MAN; Seized and taken in execution, and to be sold by CHARLES LEEPER, Sheriff.
  Carlisle, April 7, 1788. (The Carlisle Gazette and the Western Repository of Knowledge, 09 April 1788.)