Why use a fabricated poster when there are many thousands of images of the genuine thing, more compelling in that they are authentic, no less horrific in their matter-of-fact gritty details, and aboveall teh real thing?
"Thursday, 10AM the12th of April1848" was in fact a Tuesday.
The convention of 10AM was not in common use at the time; it would have been "10 o'clock" or "10 o'clock a.m.." (usually lower case) . The a.m. and p.m. notations were used often but probably 50% or less); a.m. and p.m. were used more to add an air of importance as there was no question that the hour would have been a daylight hour.
The way the slaves are listed is peculiar among broadsides of slave auctions. Age and sex and specialty skills determined the value of slaves at auction. To ignore the age of slaves...I don't think I've ever seen that in any poster, only in a two- or three-line newspaper advertisement of the period. Any time slaves are listed by groups of men and women with this skill or that, the ages are given. To not print the ages would be to imply that they were all old and infirm and health and youth were paramount.
All of that "chopp'n, bale'n, plow'n" and "bud'n out" is wrong for the period. People might have pronounced those words that way, but an auction house, not even a slave auction house (slave traders were not society people and were looked down upon as a lowly and disreputabe and sometimes dangerous class of white, they would not have flaunted English for effect.) It's easy to guess what the term "bud'n out" term was meant to evoke, but I have not seen that term in connection with slave auctions — others no less suggestive and offensive, yes, but not that one.
There were of auction houses that traded in slaves in Charleston. I don't know of one called O'Donald's, and could find anything but references also refuting the "facts" of the fabricated poster. Likewise "bud'n out" (and varitaions) generates a small number of Google hits, but every one in connection to the fabricated poster. Why not just a real term or turn of phrase found among genuine slave auction records with a clearer and more offensive meaning to illustrate how horrific slavery was?
I say lay bare every fact about slavery, but let the facts speak for themselves speak for themselves. They are stronger and more horrifying than reworking them, getting the details wrong, saying it's teh real thing, and telling people exactly how they should react. Let people react honestly to the truth. There is no more powerful message. This is just shit because someone went to trouble to fabricate something, when a real example, no less gruesome and startling, could have been found with great ease. There are thousands of broadsides, posters, and advertisements, and I would say that most are more horrifying than this fake poster.
At link are some Charleston slave auction broadsides from the 1850s.
