The Great Slave Auction (also called the Weeping Time) was an auction of enslaved Africans held at Ten Broeck Race Course, near Savannah, Georgia, United States, on March 2 and 3, 1859. Slaveholder and absentee plantation owner Pierce Mease Butler authorized the sale of approximately 436 men, women, children, and infants to be sold over the course of two days. The sale's proceeds went to satisfy Butler's significant debt, much of it from gambling. The auction was the largest single sale of slaves in U.S. history.