Bill of Goods (Poem)

Thomas Satterwhite Noble, The Last Sale of Slaves

Oil on Canvas,  ca. 1870

Missouri Historical Society

Bill of Goods

She's on the block outside
      Old Courthouse, the spot Dred Scott

first won then lost his claim to freedom.
      Young, healthy, female, octoroon,

her babe in arms proof too of potential,
      she bears both crowd's unbidding

and auctioneer's gin, hours idling to ante
      raise. Three dollars! Three dollars!

Three dollars! No less, no higher a spur,
      the fist impatient to stamp hard

Sold before the faces of liberty and justice
      on the buttresses of the porticoes.

The picture doesn't lie the way, later,
      the master's whip against tendered back

will run its parallel lines same as tracks
      of the Underground pointed due north

and one way out. Cotton bales and hemp
      rope make bed and binding for this one

named Jim, that other his wife, and her pride
      the six more from the single family

split unto hands holding person and property
      as one, no difference ever recorded.

© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas
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This year in January a reenactment of a slave auction was held at Old Courthouse in St. Louis. I earlier had come across a discussion of Noble's painting, which is said to have been rendered in response to a slave auction described as "the last" held in the city. The image above is of the second of Noble's paintings, the first (created in 1865) having been destroyed by fire. 

You'll find several interesting posts on the history, significance, and disputed title of Noble's work here, here, here, and here. James Neal Primm recounted in his Lion of the Valley a scene in St. Louis in which bidding on the first of seven slaves reached just $8.00 after two hours, causing the auctioneer to remand the slaves to jail, where they were kept as their deceased owner's estate was probated. (The third edition of Primm's book is on GoogleBooks.)

The Missouri History Museum, where Noble's painting is on display, plans a comprehensive exhibition, "The Civil War in Missouri"; it will open November 12, 2011, and run until March 16, 2013.

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I offer this poem for the One Shot Wednesday event at One Stop Poetry, which each week invites poets to share and read each other's work. Be sure to visit the site late Tuesday afternoon and every Wednesday for links to the many contributors' poems.