Show THE LAST SLAVE AUCTION auction sale held in The last great aucton this country occurred just a year and a half before the warIn October 1859at the race track at Savannah The slaves were the property of Pierce Butler a picturesque and prominent figure at that day in Philadelphia society so-ciety who is today remembered only as having been the husband of Fanny Kemble the actress reader and author au-thor His family name was Measf but he inherited a fortune In lands and slaves from his grandfather Major Pierce Buter of South Carolina on I condition that he should take the lat ters name Butlers inveterate passion for gambling gam-bling got him Into financial difficulties I Is said that he lost 26000 on a single I sin-gle handfour deuces against four kings held by his opponent Finally to meet his losses Butler was forced to sell his slaves There were OSS of them In all The sale took two days netting 300850 Butler had chosen a good time to sell A 1 < f k i 0 < j Qi year later his negroes would not have been worth a dollar a head But the sale would have been more profitable had it not been announced as one of Its conditions that no division of families fami-lies would be permitted Hence In order or-der to secure a good slave buyers often had to take with them infirm or aged relatives Out of this limitation grew a memorable tragedy Tom Pate a wellknown trader bought at the sale a man his two sisters and his wife with the guarantee that they should notbe separated Disregarding this Pate sold the sisters one to Pat Somers a brother trader and the other to a resident of St Louis What legal rights a negro had In the south were well protected Somers was told of the guarantee and he garantee sent the girl back to Pare and demanded his money A quarrel was the result and resul Somers was shot dead Ten days later his nephew killed Pate and died fjrom wounds received The feud was kept up until every male unt bearing the name of Pate was wiped out and then the war liberated Jberated the slstersXew York |