Enjoy free admission every day. Visit the museum and shop or conduct research at the Williams Research Center.
Immerse yourself in America’s fight for independence in this new exhibition experience designed and produced by French technology firm Histovery. On view until January 17, 2027.
On Friday, May 8, bring your dancing shoes and enjoy classic tunes from the Great American Songbook, including hits by Louis Prima, in HNOC’s historic courtyard at 520 Royal Street.
Dive into the Collection’s holdings with image-rich previews of treasures from New Orleans history.
June 8–12, Curator Camp is a weeklong summer program for teens who get excited by history, artifacts, and storytelling! Daily hands-on workshops and experiences introduce skills that bring history and museums to life.
Captivating true stories that surprise and inspire, written and published by HNOC staff and special guest authors.
On October 29, join us in celebrating six decades of preserving, collecting, and making history. Save the date for music, memories, and more at what is sure to be a fantastic night out in the French Quarter.
Tacked on trees, posted on buildings, and printed in newspapers, advertisements announcing the sale of enslaved men, women, and children were omnipresent in antebellum New Orleans. Though the prevalence of auction-related imagery suggests otherwise, not all sales took place on the auction block. Individuals could be sold via estate, bankruptcy, and succession sales or from seller to purchaser directly from slave pens (private jails owned by traders) or from private residences. Some humans were even raffled off in lotteries.
“I was growed up when the war come. And I was a mother before it closed. Babies were snatched from their mothers’ breasts and sold to speculators. Children was separated from sisters and brothers and never saw each other again. Course they cry; you think they not cry when they was sold like cattle? I could tell you about it all day, but even then you couldn’t guess the awfulness of it.”
Delia Garlic, from Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936–1938
Those brought to New Orleans over long distances often found themselves corralled into slave pens on arrival, issued new clothing, and readied for sale. Preparations included providing slaves with increased rations and doctors' visits to improve their overall health; mandatory exercise regimens, such as forced dancing, to build and tone muscle; and lessons—backed up with corporal punishment for transgressors—in "looking smart and lively" before prospective purchasers.
“There was in this lot a number of old men and women, some of them with gray locks. … I had to prepare the old slaves for market. I was ordered to have the old men’s whiskers shaved off, and the gray hairs plucked out, where they were not too numerous, in which case he had a preparation of blacking to color it, and with a blacking brush we would put it on.”
William Wells Brown, from Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, 1847
The Slave Auction, an 1859 eyewitness account by John Theophilus Kramer, has been fully digitized by the Internet Archive and can be read in its entirety hereOpens in new tab.
