The choice of Montgomery did make a certain sense, however, in that it was the center of the domestic slave trade in Alabama and for much of the Deep South. Scores of enslaved Blacks arrived daily by riverboat and by train, and by overland coffles, to be deposited in slave “depots,” or pens, located throughout the city. On Market alone there were nine businesses engaged in trading, auctioning, or investing in slaves, and at least eight pens where men, women, and children alike were stored before sale. A slave pen on South Decatur Street stood just a block from the capitol. Additional depots
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