Red flag (American slavery)

A red flag was a traditional signal used by slave traders of the United States to indicate that a slave auction was imminent. For instance a British visitor to Richmond, Virginia wrote in 1857, "Yesterday morning, I went down the street in which the hotel is situated, to two dirty-looking empty rooms, except for a few forms, and a stone block; from their doors hung out red flags, on which were affixed notices that so many negroes would be sold at ten o'clock." In 1861, Richmond slave trader Hector Davis paid $16.95 for a secession flag to fly outside his business; according to historian Robert Colby, "This was only the first of many gestures he made signaling his support for the fledgling Confederacy...Day by day, his secession flag flew alongside the red cloth square that signified an impending sale of slaves, the twin standards of the new Confederacy." Among the items looted by Charles Carleton Coffin from Ziba Oakes' slave jail in 1865 was a red slave-sale flag.

Source: Wikipedia — Red flag (American slavery) (CC BY-SA 4.0)