Forrest's jail was the slave pen owned and operated by Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Forrest bought 87 Adams Street, located between Second and Third, in 1854. It was located next to a tavern that operated under various names, opposite Hardwick House, and behind the still-extant Episcopal church. Forrest later traded, for fewer than six months, from 89 Adams. Byrd Hill bought 87 Adams in 1859. An estimated 3,800 people were trafficked through Forrest's jail during his five years of ownership.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal claimed in 1907 that this had been Forrest's slave pen, but Forrest's jail was between Second and Third. In 1862, the Daily Union Appeal described Forrest's pen as "a filthy den, and it would make any decent man sick to be there one night."
"General Assortment of Negroes": This card is from between 1859 and 1861, after Forrest sold 87 Adams to his former partner Byrd Hill for US$30,000 (equivalent to $1,017,333 in 2023) (National Museum of African American History and Culture)
"Hill, Ware & Chrisp, A New Firm" Memphis Daily Appeal, September 7, 1859
"The New Jail" Memphis Daily Union Appeal, August 24, 1862
Slave markets and slave jails in the United States
Slave markets and slave jails in the United States were places used for the slave trade in the United States from the founding in 1776 until the total abolition of slavery in 1865. Slave pens, also known as slave jails, were used to temporarily hold enslaved people until they were sold, or to hold fugitive slaves, and sometimes even to "board" slaves while traveling. Slave markets were any place where sellers and buyers gathered to make deals. Some of these buildings had dedicated slave jails, others were negro marts to showcase the slaves offered for sale, and still others were general auction or market houses where a wide variety of business was conducted, of which "negro trading" was just one part.
Price, Birch & Co., "dealers in slaves" Alexandria, Virginia, photographed c. 1862
In addition to private jails, enslaved people were often held in public jails, such as a 40-year-old fugitive man named Monday who fought "like the Devil when arrested" and who was held in the jail of Walker County, Alabama (The Democrat, Huntsville, July 7, 1847)
Claimed to be Nathan Bedford Forrest's slave pen ("The Old Negro Mart" Memphis Commercial Appeal, January 27, 1907)
"Sale of Estates, Pictures and Slaves in the Rotunda at New Orleans" by William Henry Brooke from The Slave States of America (1842) by James Silk Buckingham depicts a slave sale at the St. Louis Hotel, sometimes called the French Exchange