The Great Slave Auction (also called The Weeping Time) was a March 2 and 3, 1859 auction of enslaved Africans held at Ten Broeck Race Course, near Savannah, Georgia, United States. 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 debts, much of it from gambling. The auction is regarded as the largest single sale of enslaved people in U.S. history.