Photograph said to be taken during a slave auction in Cheapside Plaza in Lexington, Kentucky, c. 1862. The man standing on a platform in the center waving his arms looks as though he is the auctioneer. The bovine in the left background might suggest that the photo actually depicts a livestock auction, although Cheapside was the location of a slave market in the period. If anyone could provide any more incite on the photograph's authenticity it would be appreciated.
I know nothing about this to begin with, but after looking at the photo, the business front in the background appears to be that of C.D. Carr.
A quick google search shows that there was a man named Charles Dabney Carr who lived in Lexington, Kentucky in this period. He was an attorney and later judge starting in 1858, re-elected in 1862.
This document indicates that his office was located at the courthouse. Various sources, including this one indicate that the main slave trading location was on the lawn of the courthouse. (The valuable slaves like adults were sold on one side, and the children and weak who were less valuable were sold on the "cheap side" of the courthouse.)
So this could very well indicate that it is at least at a site where slave auctions regularly occurred. Whether or not it is slaves actually being auctioned, I can't say. I can't rule out the possibility that they are auctioning off animals at the same site. The figures in the photograph are too blurry and their skin color too difficult to discern (along with me being too unknowledgeable) to try to say more.
So all in all, I say with some confidence that it is at a slave auction site outside the courthouse.
A couple added things. There are a couple of potentially conflicting pieces of information I found when I was trying to get information that help pinpoint what is going on in this photo.
First, he sided with the Union during the war, which would make one think that he would have supported abolition and may not have wanted his house (with possible adjoining house) to be next door to a slave auction site.
The second is this document which is a basic ledger for slaves. There are two entries being listed as belonging to an individual named Charles Carr. I can't say with any confidence that it's the same person.The document is for slaves born in 1852, which would put C.D. Carr at roughly 25-28 years old and possibly too young and financially unstable to have ownership of at least two slaves, even if infants or children, at that point in his life.
Finally, this all is dependent on the fact that the name on the doorway is actully that of Charles Dabney Carr. If it's not, then everything I've written should be taken for naught.
Are any Black people visible in the photograph?
What I find interesting is that, while there's the group in the middle focused on the guys with the waving arms, there's another group on the right focused on...something else...
Not enough info.
Being that it is 1862 in Kentucky, it could easily just be a pro-Union or Confederate soapbox speech.
