U.S. National Parks Service "There were constant reminders of the horrors of slavery in antebellum St. Louis. One of the worst involved the open sales of slaves at various places along the city’s busiest streets, which was an accepted community practice. Regular slave auctions and sales were held in several places, most notably at the slave market run by Bernard M. Lynch on Locust Street between Fourth and Fifth. This market was moved in 1859 to Broadway and Clark Streets. Lynch’s “slave pens” were former private residences with bars placed on all the windows to secure them like prisons. Slaves were herded off steamboats and up the street to the slave houses, then sold to persons, especially after 1840, from outside St. Louis, mostly from the western counties in Missouri or further down the river. Families were broken up, with children taken from mothers, fathers sold down the river, husbands and wives separated. And all of this was done in full view of crowds wishing to buy and passersby going about their daily business."

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