# The Slave Market explained — Clotel

> Chapter companion for Clotel by William Wells Brown.

## What happens

This chapter describes the brutal realities of the New Orleans slave market, focusing on the dehumanizing examination and sale of enslaved individuals, including Althesa, Aaron, and others. It highlights the cruelty of the trade, the separation of families, and the complicity of society in the slave economy.

## Themes in this chapter

### Dehumanization and Commodification

The chapter vividly depicts enslaved people being examined like livestock, with their bodies inspected and their ages manipulated to increase sale value.

### Family Destruction Under Slavery

The sale separates families, as seen in the woman crying for her husband and Althesa's sorrow after leaving her mother.

### Hypocrisy of American Democracy

The chapter notes that buying and selling slaves does not forfeit one's social standing, exposing the moral contradiction in a nation founded on liberty.

## Character check-ins

### Althesa

Althesa is displayed for sale, her pale countenance and dejected look reflecting her sorrow after parting from her mother.

### Aaron

Aaron is examined by a planter, subjected to invasive questioning and a back inspection to assess his age and health.

### Pompey

Pompey assists in the examination, instructing Aaron to undress for inspection.

### Mr. Walker

Walker, the slave-trader, brings his gang to the slave pen for sale.

### Shakespeare Crawford

Crawford, a bank teller, purchases Althesa as a maidservant for his new wife.

## Key lines

> What! mothers from their children riven! What! God’s own image bought and sold! Americans to market driven, And barter’d as the brute for gold.

The epigraph condemns the slave trade as a brutal commodification of human beings, tearing families apart.

_Sets the tone for the chapter's critique of slavery._

> Known to God only is the amount of human agony and suffering which sends its cry from the slave markets and negro pens, unheard and unheeded by man, up to his ear; mothers weeping for their children, breaking the night-silence with the shrieks of their breaking hearts.

The immense suffering of enslaved people in markets and pens is witnessed only by God, as human society ignores their cries.

_Emphasizes the hidden yet profound anguish of the slave trade._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/clotel_se/chapters/v-the-slave-market
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/clotel_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/clotel_se/chapters