In The Flow of Time – January 24, 2025
It is 1817. The current scene involve a doctor’s establishment, and a slave pen. What did people, circa 1820, call these places?
Dr. Josias Kerr, my character, is historical. He’s from Northern Ireland, arrived with the British assault in 1815, as a young doctor. Met Manette, who volunteered as nurse, stayed. Married Manette, and spent the rest of his life in New Orleans, treating among others, BLACK PEOPLE! He went out onto plantations and treated the slaves. A genuine human being.
It is the onset of the annual “fever season.” Intensity varied from minor to massive, but every fall there was an epidemic of yellow fever. No one knows why, but it seems to affect “strangers,” the new people in town. (Because it’s a virus, and the locals who survived have acquired immunity.) Slaves arriving in New Orleans are often from the east coast of the US, where there is no fever. Slave pens often had a doctor on contract, because they needed the merchandise healthy.
What was a slave pen like? There is a showroom where the swells can inspect the merchandise. Up close. All over. The owner of the pen typically treats the slaves fairly well. They are fed. They have an exercise yard, because they have to look good to potential buyers. The owner has clean clothes in which to dress up his merchandise. The place is functionally a small prison. These are slaves, they cannot come and go as they please. So bars, locks. Bad ones stink, but that drives away the better class of customer. A sale at a slave pen might be an auction, the buyers line up and bid. It is also “You can get the latest model for just $600.” (There are also major auction houses. The story will be in one of those down the road.)
Historically 1817 is a bit early for the mass of slave pens that populated New Orleans from, say 1825-1860. The location I’m using is historical, but it wasn’t a slave pen yet in 1817. FICTION. I owe allegiance to the truth. I have moved this a few years in time, which has zero impact on the truth of the scene.
I need to describe this location accurately, thoroughly, and sensitively. In historically correct terms. For that I need words. There’s a literary reason why I want period words. Part of the ambiance of this story is the simple truth that, as horrible as this is to US now, to the people then this was the natural order of things. Black people in slave pens was no more disturbing to most than house plants at Home Depot.
I have a perfect source: newspapers. It doesn’t take long. A doctor’s establishment is an “office,” not rooms or surgery. The slave pen is a “depot.” There are ice depots, oil/lamp depots, paving stone depots, farm animal depots… you get the idea. Depot = storefront or warehouse. So I will use that word, and to get the idea across, that human beings are penned in this place against their will.
It was completely mundane. And horrible.
