Under Louisiana law at the time, enslaved persons were considered real property attached to the land and their sale had to be officially registered by notaries in the cities or by justices of the peace, who also served as notaries, assisted by clerks. Auctions were a common way of liquidating property and settling debts, and some auctioneers made their living selling enslaved people. In New Orleans, auctions were held every Saturday and attracted crowds of curious people under the rotundas of the city's luxury hotels (Johnson, 1999, p. 54). On the last day of April 1840, after Marcellin Haydel's death, his bankrupt brother Jean Jacques Haydel Jr. sold 70 individuals attached to the plantation,