Slave Market

The largest promotion of St. Augustine's public market as a "Slave Market" came when the famous photographer W.J. Harris depicted it on this mass-produced post card...'The caption on the back says, "OLD SLAVE MARKET ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA." The old market in the east end of the Plaza is an interesting landmark of antebellum days. Old slave in foreground.'...Not only was Harris interested in selling his post cards, he was also the business manager for St. Augustine's historical society. He embodied the Ancient City's struggle between historical accuracy and economic survival. Harris' biggest adversary was Charles B. Reynolds, who published an article in Mr. Foster's Travel Magazine in 1921 refuting Duffus, Harris, and all of the historical embellishing that went on in St. Augustine. Harris defended himself and the historical society by saying Reynolds was bad for the town's economic backbone, tourism. Nevertheless, Harris eventually distributed a revised version of the Slave Market post card. The newer version reads, 'OLD SLAVE MARKET ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA., The old slave market in the east end of the Plaza is an interesting landmark of antebellum days. Built in 1840 for a public market. Called "slave market" by an enterprising photographer to make his pictures sell.' -- Augustine.com

Note that this postcard was sold by multiple publishers, not only with variations in both the front and back text (as noted above) but also with variations in coloring (as would be expected from hand-colored postcard images) and cropping. Other postcard publishers, when depicting the market, simply called the structure the "Old Market" or "Spanish Market".