Presented by National Park Service/Petersburg National Battlefield

Petersburg National Battlefield will host a special event “The Foregoing Sale: Honoring Enslaved People at City Point” which will pay tribute the lives of enslaved men, women, and children who were sold by and to the Eppes family. This is both a daytime and evening event. The afternoon program will begin at 1:00 pm at St. John’s Episcopal Church, located at 505 Cedar Lane in Hopewell and conclude at the General Grant’s Headquarters Unit located at 1001 Pecan Avenue. The tour will include an exhibition of bills of sale, diary entries, and an 1837 inventory courtesy of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture and Prince George County, Virginia Clerk’s Office.

Schedule of events:

1:00 pm: The Life and Times of James Madison Ruffin with a floral tribute to him and his daughter at St. John’s Episcopal Church

1:45-3:00 pm: Guided tours of Plantation House, Historic Documents on the Slave Trade exhibition, and outbuildings. Final tour will take place at 2:30

3:15-3:45 pm: Insight into the Richmond Slave Trade through Bins, Henry Corsen, and Jim Booker (indoor lecture)

4:00-5:30 pm: House is closed but grounds remain open

5:30-7:30 pm: Evening program: Akoma De Gado Dance and Drum Ensemble and libation ceremony. Lecture about the people who were sold at that site on March 2, 1837