Housed in the Vendue House, the building on Bay Street where slaves were sold publicly through the 18th and early 19th centuries. After emancipation it served variously as a market, courthouse, and government office; since 1992 it has been the museum it should always have been.
The exhibits are small, sober, and unflinching: shackles, sale records, plantation tools, and the personal histories of resistance — Pompey's rebellion, Daddy Sam Bowleg's leadership in the Out Islands. The most important place in Nassau for understanding why the Bahamas looks the way it does today. Free admission; allow an hour.