In the colonial period, Charles Towne (now Charleston, South Carolina) was a major site for the sale of both African and Native people, as was New Amsterdam (New York City). These captives stood on the same auction blocks, traversed the Atlantic on the same ships, and finally ended up in the same Northern households or Southern or Caribbean plantations, where they lived, labored, suffered, and surely dreamed together.19 These shared circumstances of enslavement led to the merger of families, cultures, and fates.
