Charleston’s historic district makes it easy to spend a day learning African American history on foot. Several of the city’s most important sites are within walking distance of the Old Slave Mart Museum, and together they tell a fuller story than any one of them can alone. This itinerary suggests an order, explains what each stop offers, and includes planning tips. Hours, ticketing, and admission change, so confirm details with each site before you go.

Stop 1: Old Slave Mart Museum

Where: 6 Chalmers Street. Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; closed Sundays.

Begin here. The museum occupies the last surviving building of Ryan’s Mart, where enslaved people were sold in the years before the Civil War, and it provides the historical foundation for the rest of the day. Plan on at least an hour. Our visitor guide covers admission, what to expect, and tips.

Stop 2: The Old Exchange and the waterfront

Where: 122 East Bay Street.

The Old Exchange building stands at the center of the waterfront area where enslaved people were sold publicly until the city banned public auctions in 1856. After that, sales moved indoors to marts like Ryan’s Mart. Walking from Chalmers Street to the Old Exchange follows, in a sense, the path of that change. The Old Exchange operates as a museum with its own tours; check its website for current hours and admission. To understand the larger context, read Charleston and the slave trade: why the port mattered.

Stop 3: Charleston City Market

Where: Market Street, in the historic district.

The City Market is a good place for a lunch break and a chance to see the sweetgrass baskets and crafts sold there. It is also a place with a history that is often misunderstood, because it is sometimes wrongly called a slave market. We explain the difference in Old Slave Mart Museum vs. Charleston City Market, and you can read more on our City Market page.

Stop 4: International African American Museum

Where: 14 Wharfside Street, on the site of Gadsden’s Wharf. Hours at the time of writing: Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 12:00 to 5:00 p.m.; closed Monday; last entry at 4:00 p.m.

The International African American Museum stands at Gadsden’s Wharf, where ships carrying enslaved Africans docked in the final years of the Atlantic trade to Charleston. The museum tells the story of African American history from the Atlantic crossing through the present, with attention to the Lowcountry and its Gullah Geechee communities. Timed-entry tickets are required and the museum recommends buying them online in advance, so book before your trip. The museum is roughly a mile from the Old Slave Mart; you can walk if the weather is good or take a short ride. Give it generous time, since it is a full museum and not a quick stop.

Optional: Avery Research Center

The Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, part of the College of Charleston, preserves and interprets the history and culture of African Americans in Charleston and the Lowcountry through archives, exhibitions, and public programs. Visiting hours and events vary, so check the Avery Research Center website before you plan a stop there.

A suggested day

• 9:00 a.m.: Old Slave Mart Museum, about an hour.
• 10:30 a.m.: Walk to the Old Exchange and waterfront.
• Noon: Lunch at or near the City Market.
• 2:00 p.m.: International African American Museum with a timed ticket reserved in advance.
• Late afternoon: Time to rest, reflect, or visit the Avery Research Center if it is open.

Tips for planning

• Reserve first. Because the International African American Museum uses timed tickets, book it first and build the rest of the day around it.
• Beat the heat. Charleston summers are hot and humid. Start early, carry water, and use the museums as air-conditioned breaks.
• Wear comfortable shoes. Many historic streets are cobblestone.
• Leave room for reflection. These sites deal with difficult history. Do not pack the day so tightly that there is no time to absorb it.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best African American history sites in Charleston?

The Old Slave Mart Museum and the International African American Museum are the two most visited, and they complement each other well: one focuses on the trade and the building where sales took place, the other on the arrival of enslaved Africans and the history that followed. The Old Exchange, the Avery Research Center, and the City Market add further layers.

Can I do all of this in one day?

Yes, with planning. The itinerary above fits a full day, but many visitors prefer to split the sites across two days so that each gets its due.

How far is the International African American Museum from the Old Slave Mart?

Roughly a mile. It is walkable, or a short drive or ride away.

Sources and further reading

• Plan Your Visit, International African American Museum
• City of Charleston: Old Slave Mart Museum
• Plan a Visit, Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon
• Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture

oldslavemartmuseum.com is an independent informational guide and is not operated by the City of Charleston or by any of the sites listed above.

Visitors to Charleston often ask whether the historic City Market is where enslaved people were sold, and many search for the “Old Slave Market” or the “Charleston slave market” expecting to find it there. The short answer is no. The Charleston City Market and the Old Slave Mart Museum are two different places with two different histories, and the confusion has lasted long enough to be worth clearing up.

The short answer

The Old Slave Mart Museum, at 6 Chalmers Street, occupies the last surviving building of Ryan’s Mart, a slave auction complex. The Charleston City Market, several blocks away, is a long-established public market where vendors sold food and goods. Charleston historians who have examined the question report that enslaved people were not sold at the City Market.

Where enslaved people were actually sold in Charleston

Until 1856, enslaved people in Charleston were sold publicly along the waterfront, around the Old Exchange building at 122 East Bay Street. In 1856 the city banned public auctions in that area. Sales did not stop. They moved into enclosed marts on nearby streets, including Chalmers, State, and Queen streets. Ryan’s Mart, on Chalmers Street, was one of them, and its surviving auction gallery is the building that houses the Old Slave Mart Museum today. You can read the full story in our history of the Old Slave Mart and Ryan’s Mart.

What the Charleston City Market is

The site of the City Market traces back to land that Charles Cotesworth Pinckney gave to the city in 1788 for public market use. The Centre Market, as it was then known, was established by city ordinance in 1807 as a public market open every day except Christmas. Vendor sheds were built over the following decades, and the market has continued in some form ever since. Today it is a tourist destination known for its sweetgrass baskets, crafts, and local goods. For more, see our page on the Charleston City Market.

Why the two are confused

There are a few reasons the names get mixed up. The words “mart” and “market” sound almost interchangeable, and people searching online often type “Old Slave Market Museum” or “Charleston Slave Market Museum” when they mean the Old Slave Mart Museum. The City Market also earned the nickname “the Slave Market” or “Slave’s Market” over the years, but not because people were sold there. The nickname is generally explained by the fact that enslaved and free Black Charlestonians sold their own goods at the market, which is a very different history. That fact is part of the City Market’s real story and deserves to be told accurately.

Visiting both

The two sites are a short walk from each other in the historic district, and they fit naturally into the same day. If you visit the City Market, consider walking on to the Old Slave Mart Museum to see where the trade in enslaved people actually took place. Find hours, admission, and tips in our Old Slave Mart Museum visitor guide, or build a fuller route with our itinerary of African American history sites in Charleston.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Old Slave Market the same as the Old Slave Mart?

People use “Old Slave Market” informally, but the correct name of the museum is the Old Slave Mart Museum. The museum is not located in the City Market.

Were enslaved people sold at the Charleston City Market?

No. Enslaved people were sold along the waterfront near the Old Exchange until 1856, and then in enclosed marts such as Ryan’s Mart on Chalmers Street.

Where is the Old Slave Mart Museum?

At 6 Chalmers Street, Charleston, SC 29401, on a cobblestone street in the historic district.

Why is the City Market sometimes called the Slave Market?

The nickname is generally traced to the enslaved and free Black vendors who sold goods there, not to slave auctions.

Sources and further reading

• City Market Myths, Walking Charleston
• City of Charleston: Old Slave Mart Museum
• Old Slave Mart and Charleston’s Historic Memory, Avery Research Center

oldslavemartmuseum.com is an independent informational guide and is not operated by the City of Charleston.

Charleston is remembered today for its pastel houses, church steeples, and cobblestone streets. It was also one of the most important ports in the history of American slavery. Roughly four in ten enslaved Africans brought to North America arrived through Charleston, and after the international trade was outlawed, the city became a major center of the domestic trade that sold enslaved people to the expanding cotton lands of the South. This article explains that history and points to the places in Charleston where you can learn more.

Charleston’s role in the Atlantic slave trade

Eighteenth-century South Carolina was the continent’s leading importer of enslaved people, receiving approximately 100,000 Africans over the course of the century, according to the South Carolina Encyclopedia. The International African American Museum states that more than 40 percent of the Africans forced to North America arrived in Charleston. Other commonly cited estimates run a little lower, in the range of 35 to 40 percent, depending on the records and methods used. Every version of the figure points to the same conclusion: Charleston was the single most important point of arrival for enslaved Africans in North America.

Gadsden’s Wharf

In the final stages of the Atlantic trade to Charleston, slave ships docked at Gadsden’s Wharf on the Cooper River waterfront. The site is now home to the International African American Museum at 14 Wharfside Street, which opened there so that the story of arrival could be told at the place where so many people first set foot on American soil. See our itinerary of African American history sites in Charleston for how to visit.

The 1808 deadline and the final surge of imports

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, delegates reached a compromise that guaranteed the international slave trade could continue for twenty years. Federal prohibition took effect in 1808. South Carolina had reopened its own international trade in 1803, and in the five years before the federal ban, almost forty thousand Africans entered the port of Charleston. The approaching deadline produced a surge of imports rather than a slowdown.

The domestic slave trade after 1808

Ending the international trade did not end the buying and selling of human beings. It turned the trade inward. Enslaved people were sold within the United States and moved, often over great distances and often away from their families, to work on the cotton and sugar lands that were opening in the Deep South and Texas. By the 1820s, South Carolina had become a net exporter of enslaved people.

Charleston became one of the major collecting and selling centers of this domestic trade. For decades, enslaved people were sold publicly around the Old Exchange building on the waterfront. In 1856 the city banned public auctions there, and the business moved into enclosed marts on Chalmers, State, and Queen streets. Ryan’s Mart, whose last surviving building is now the Old Slave Mart Museum, is the best-known of them. Conservative estimates suggest that around 10,000 people were sold through Ryan’s Mart, and that some were sent as far as Texas. Read more in our history of the Old Slave Mart and Ryan’s Mart.

What this history means for visitors today

Many visitors arrive in Charleston expecting architecture, food, and beaches, and they find them. They also walk streets where this history happened, often without knowing it. Learning about the slave trade does not require giving up the rest of the trip; it deepens it. The Old Slave Mart Museum places the domestic trade inside a real building. The International African American Museum tells the story of arrival and of the descendants who built lives, culture, and communities in Charleston and the surrounding Lowcountry. The College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center preserves and interprets African American history in the region.

If you are planning a visit, start with our Old Slave Mart Museum hours, tickets, and visitor guide.

Frequently asked questions

What share of enslaved Africans came through Charleston?

Estimates commonly range from about 35 to more than 40 percent of the Africans brought to North America. The International African American Museum uses the figure of more than 40 percent.

Where did enslaved Africans arrive in Charleston?

In the last stages of the trade, ships docked at Gadsden’s Wharf, where the International African American Museum stands today.

Did the slave trade in Charleston end in 1808?

The international trade was outlawed in 1808, but the domestic trade continued in Charleston until the end of slavery. Public auctions were banned in 1856, and sales moved to enclosed marts such as Ryan’s Mart.

Sources and further reading

• Slave Trade, South Carolina Encyclopedia
• Resources for Documenting the Atlantic Slave Trade in Charleston, International African American Museum
• Visit the Old Slave Mart Museum, Discover South Carolina
• Old Slave Mart and Charleston’s Historic Memory, Avery Research Center

oldslavemartmuseum.com is an independent informational guide and is not operated by the City of Charleston.

The Old Slave Mart at 6 Chalmers Street is the last surviving building of Ryan’s Mart, one of the principal slave-trading complexes in Charleston in the years before the Civil War. Its story runs from a city ordinance in 1856 to a museum that opened in 1938 and reopened under city ownership in 2007. Published sources differ on some dates and details, and where they do, this account says so. It draws on the City of Charleston, the museum’s own history, scholarship from the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center, and other published sources listed at the end.

Before Ryan’s Mart: public sales near the Old Exchange

For much of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, enslaved people in Charleston were sold in public around the Old Exchange building on the waterfront. In 1856 the city banned public auctions of enslaved people in that area. The ordinance did not end slavery or the slave trade. It moved the business indoors, and enclosed slave marts began operating along Chalmers, State, and Queen streets. To understand why Charleston was such a center of the trade in the first place, see Charleston and the slave trade: why the port mattered.

Ryan’s Mart opens on Chalmers Street

After the ban, Thomas Ryan, a Charleston city councilman, established Ryan’s Mart on Chalmers Street, reportedly with a business partner, James Marsh. The complex stretched between Chalmers and Queen streets and included an auction room, a kitchen, a morgue, and a four-story building used to confine enslaved people while they awaited sale. Auctions were advertised in printed broadsheets, and people sold there were sent to distant places, some as far away as Texas.

Historians’ conservative estimates put the number of enslaved people auctioned through Ryan’s Mart at around 10,000, and possibly more. Behind that figure are individual men, women, and children, many separated from their families.

The auction gallery building

In 1859, Ziba B. Oakes, an auctioneer and slave trader, purchased Ryan’s Mart. The auction gallery that survives today dates to this period, although accounts differ on exactly when it was built. One published description notes an auction table roughly three feet high and ten feet long standing just inside the arched entrance. The other structures of the complex, including the four-story building used to confine people, did not survive.

The end of the mart

Ryan’s Mart operated for roughly seven years. The Civil War disrupted Charleston’s slave trade, and Union forces occupied the city in February 1865.

Decades of other uses, 1865 to 1937

After the war the property was subdivided and put to new uses. The surviving building served as tenement housing for African American residents and later as a repair shop. One account places this period of use between 1878 and 1937.

A museum opens in 1938

In 1938, Miriam B. Wilson purchased the building and opened a museum there. It first displayed African and African American art and crafts, and it remained privately operated for decades, with Wilson’s involvement continuing until her death in 1959. Today the museum describes itself as Charleston’s oldest museum of African American history and the first museum on the history of slavery in the United States.

City ownership and the 2007 reopening

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970s. The City of Charleston acquired the property in 1988. After renovation and new exhibits focused on the domestic slave trade, the city reopened the site to the public as a museum in 2007. It remains city-owned and operated today. Visitor details are in our Old Slave Mart Museum hours, tickets, and visitor guide.

Why the Old Slave Mart matters

The building is believed to be the only surviving structure in South Carolina that functioned as a slave auction site. That matters because historic Charleston is often presented through its beautiful architecture and gardens, and those same streets were built by, and financed through, the labor and sale of enslaved people. Standing inside the gallery makes that history concrete in a way that a plaque or a book cannot.

Frequently asked questions

When was the Old Slave Mart built?

The surviving auction gallery dates to the late 1850s, in the period when Ryan’s Mart operated and Ziba B. Oakes took ownership in 1859. Published sources differ on the exact construction date.

Was this the only place enslaved people were sold in Charleston?

No. Before 1856, public sales took place around the Old Exchange, and other marts operated along Chalmers, State, and Queen streets. The Old Slave Mart is notable because its building survives. It is also different from the Charleston City Market; see Old Slave Mart Museum vs. Charleston City Market.

Who owns the Old Slave Mart today?

The City of Charleston.

Sources and further reading

• City of Charleston: Old Slave Mart Museum
• History of the Site, The Old Slave Mart Museum
• Old Slave Mart and Charleston’s Historic Memory, Avery Research Center
• Visit the Old Slave Mart Museum, Discover South Carolina

oldslavemartmuseum.com is an independent informational guide and is not operated by the City of Charleston.