Slave Auction Block

The Slave Auction Block is a granite curb stone at the corner of William and Charles Streets that served as one of the principal auction sites for enslaved people in Fredericksburg from at least the 1820s through the Civil War. It is a simple object — unadorned stone, flush with the sidewalk — and the historical marker beside it is the only indication of what it signifies.

Fredericksburg was an important node in the domestic slave trade, well-positioned between the Chesapeake slave-breeding regions and the Mississippi Valley plantations that consumed an ever-growing supply of forced labor. Thousands of men, women, and children were auctioned here. The block was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2023 after years of debate about its significance and its preservation. It is worth a visit both for what it represents and because the historical marker provides unusually direct language about the realities of the trade.

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A story
The auction block at William and Charles Streets was in use through the 1850s, when Fredericksburg was one of the busiest slave markets in the upper South. The town sat on the main route from the Chesapeake slave-trading centers toward the Deep South, and thousands of people were sold here before being marched to cotton and sugar plantations in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. The block itself is a plain granite curb — the mundane appearance is part of what makes it so striking.