History of the Old Slave Mart: From Ryan's Mart to Museum

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

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