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You are here: Home / Language / What Does the Expression “Sold Down the River” Mean and How Did the Phrase Originate?

What Does the Expression “Sold Down the River” Mean and How Did the Phrase Originate?

June 24, 2020 by Karen Hill

After 1808 it was illegal for deep southerners to import slaves, and so they were brought down the Mississippi River from the North to the slave markets of Natchez and New Orleans.

This gave the northerners a way of selling off their difficult or troublesome slaves to the harsher plantation owners on the southern Mississippi.

It also meant that those selected or betrayed would be torn from their homes and families to be “sold down the river.”

When someone is betrayed we often say he was “sold down the river”.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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