If you would all step inside where you can hear me. Good morning. I'm Chet, and I'm your tour guide. The National Park Service and the city of Charleston welcome you to the Old Slave Mart. By the way, if you like this tour and wish to return, be aware that our great senator, Lindsey Graham, has introduced a bill to rename this building the Dixie Trade School Museum, so we may have a brand new name pretty soon.
Now, this building was put up in 1859, and soon became a center of commerce and job training for the greater Southland. Here, newcomers to our shores were welcomed and were assured of food, billeting, and acclimation to the language and customs of their new home. Each newcomer was assigned a tutor, who would choose a trade for the newcomer to learn. Some of the tutors were skillful enough to train hundreds of newcomers.
I'll show you our artifacts exhibits now, but a word of explanation is due. Senator Graham had his staff research these artifacts, with special attention to the signage at each display, and they have made some exciting new discoveries that have helped us interpret the historical record with more accuracy. So you may wish to disregard the signage, as it has not yet been updated.
For instance, here you have an historical print which the sign says is a diagram of the hold of a slave ship. Sen. Graham's staff pointed out that the so-called slaves did not look like human figures at all. We have determined that this is in fact an inside view of a papaya, and probably came from a 19th century agricultural textbook. See all the papaya seeds lined up? This is a papaya.
Here you have suitcase grips. I know the sign says 'Leg Shackles', but notice how much more useful these would be as suitcase grips. You must imagine the newcomers, stepping onto the dock in Charleston, and many of them would have had old suitcases with broken handles. So you would just -- snap -- these grips on, and you'd have a dandy two-handed grip. Looks pretty neat, doesn't it.
Okay, now this is a first edition copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Northern lady. It is considered to be the first American science fiction novel, and was quite popular in its time. Mrs. Stowe invented a fantasy world as a comment, we believe, on the textile mill workers of New England.
Now here is a branding iron, which was used by our ancestors in the craft of woodworking. 'John Loves Mary' on a tree trunk, let's say. Pretty neat, isn't it.
This one says 'Bullwhip', and I do not have the new text from Senator Graham's office at this time. So I am going to guess it is a bullwhip, and I have a pretty good idea that some farms had bulls out in the fields, wouldn't you say. Looks pretty neat.
Now finally, we are here in the main hall, and this is where the newcomers got together with their tutors. You can see there is a little stage here, so you must imagine that each newcomer could do a little show, and maybe do a little dance or tell a story. They were new to our shores, but they were already Ameri-CANS, not Ameri-CAN'TS.
Thank you for listening. We have a little canteen on the way out, where you can get yourself a genuine slice of pecan pie and a Co'Cola.
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