then owned by his sister-in-law. The sale took place in the Bath Saloon of the St. Louis Hotel located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the city's most famous slave market. The group, exhibited and sold by auctioneer Joseph Le Carpentier and recorded before the notary public Felix Grima, mostly comprised young men and women but also included elderly people; 12 had been born in Africa and suffered from various ailments such as asthma, hernias or haemorrhoids. There were 66 adults in all and 8 of the 10 children recorded were with their mothers. Lady, a farm worker, 33 years of age, from the East Coast, was sold in one lot with her five children, between 2 and 8 years of age, for $\$ 2,650$. The oldest enslaved person sold at this auction was Jacob, who was 70 years of age, had been born in Africa and suffered from a hernia, for $\$ 175$. There was no retirement for enslaved people, unless they were freed or they bought their freedom from their masters. Free people of colour could own their property, including enslaved people, but this was an epiphenomenon among the Louisiana master class. Étienne Villeré, a free man of colour, lived on the Haydel plantation, where he died on 29 July 1850, at 80 years of age. He was then the owner of five enslaved people, including Little Guim (Jim), an African who was 66 years of age and had been bought 10 years earlier at the above-mentioned auctions along with Marianne, a 56-year-old woman, originally from Congo. Sery was considered an 'idiot' and sold for just $\$ 105$, the lowest price on that day. The man who bought her saw the full potential of a young woman of only 25 years of age.