The Rain Would Not Stop

Logline

Pierce Butler auctions 436 human beings at Ten Broeck racetrack in a two-day rain that never stopped.

What the episode covers

• Pierce Butler's gambling debts and the decision to liquidate the Butler estate at Hampton Point and Butler Island.
• The auction, March 2–3, 1859 — Ten Broeck racetrack outside Savannah. The largest single slave auction in U.S. history.
• Mortimer Thomson's What Became of the Slaves on a Georgia Plantation — the embedded New-York Tribune reporter's account.

Production notes

Community-attributed traditional music only, no post-1928 material. All primary sources public domain (Library of Congress, National Archives, community archives) or community-controlled oral history. Screenplay filed with U.S. Copyright Office as part of the Gullah Geechee Biz Season 1 deposit.

Attribution

Written & Directed by Darryl Elliott Brown
Produced by Darryl Elliott Brown
A Gullah Geechee Biz Production
© 2026 Darryl Elliott Brown