Description
An African American woman, probably a former slave, poses in front of a slave pen in Alexandria. Slave traders in the Upper South held African Americans in slave pens or jails such as this one, until the enslaved were sold and then shipped or marched farther south, where many would be sold yet again. Union soldiers, who took over Alexandria in 1862, peer out from behind the barred door. This image was taken by an unknown photographer in the 1860s.
