A short drive from the Route 1 corridor in Upper Marlboro lies a haunting reminder during Black History Month: a long stone block once used to exhibit enslaved people at auction.
Though there was slavery throughout the county, the heaviest concentration was in the eastern part of the county due to the number of tobacco farms there which depended on their unpaid labor.
A group of National Park Service historians wrote in 2021 that Upper Marlboro was “the site of the county’s most active slave market.”
According to other records, the auctions took place at an outdoor market just off Main Street, behind a brick building first built in the 1700s.
Similar auction blocks in other cities have been the subject of intense debate. In Fredericksburg, Va., the community spent three years discussing what to do with a 1,200 pound sandstone block, which was eventually loaned to a local museum and replaced with a historical marker.
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