ALEXANDRIA, VA — Every market day, Sophia Browning Bell walked to Alexandria to sell her vegetables. She was enslaved.
But according to the testimony in a newly published Historic Alexandria study, Bell had what was known as a market garden — likely a small plot she was permitted to cultivate while enslaved — and she carried vegetables to the Alexandria market on market days. Over time, she saved $400 without her owner’s knowledge and entrusted the money to a Methodist preacher, who used it in 1801 to purchase her husband George Bell’s freedom. A few years later, George Bell purchased Sophia’s freedom.
Her story is one of the most powerful human threads inside Alexandria City Hall, Market Square, and Slavery: A Documentary Study, a 242-page report by historian Greg A. Beaman, Ph.D., published by the Office of Historic Alexandria as Alexandria Archaeology Publication No. 149.
And it comes at a moment when Alexandria’s most visible civic landmark is impossible to ignore.
Why City Hall Is Under Renovation
By now, most Alexandrians have seen the fencing, closures and construction activity around City Hall and Market Square…