Franklin and Armfield Slave Traders, one of the most active slave trading firms, sold at least one-third of all slaves in the Deep South in the 1820s and 1830s. A first-hand account by abolitionist Professor E.A. Andrews compares the building to a penitentiary—its meticulous cleanliness, white-washed exterior and interior, “high walls . . . bolts, and bars,� more deplorable than a prison because of the inhabitants’ ancestral life sentence to bondage.1 The site remained active until 1861 when the Union Army invaded Alexandria and converted it to a prison for the rest of the war.  1 E.A. Andrews, “A Loathsome Prison:� Slave Trading in Antebellum Alexandria, Alexandria Black History Museum, Slave Trading Lesson Plan, http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson1reading2_abolitionist.html. (accessed December 21, 2007). http://oha.alexandriava.gov/bhrc/lessons/bh-lesson1reading2_abolitionist.htmlshapeimage_1_link_0
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