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48-673: The awards take their name from the 1934 short story " Sidewise in Time " by Murray Leinster , in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with their analogs from other timelines. The awards were created by Steven H Silver , Evelyn C. Leeper , and Robert B. Schmunk. Over the years, the number of judges has fluctuated between three and eight and have included judges in the United States , United Kingdom , Canada and South Africa . Two awards are normally presented each year, usually at WorldCon or at NASFiC . The Short-Form award

96-452: A Roman villa. They are captured by the villa's owner, except for Blake, who escapes. Later that night Blake secretly returns to the villa and frees the others from the slave pen , shooting the owner in the process. The next morning, the party finds itself near a section of their own timeline. Blake leads the other students there, but Minott refuses to come; he still intends to travel to a more primitive timeline and make himself its ruler. One of

144-514: A former slave trader named Jack Campbell told a reporter "Go into any Southern hotel that was built before the war and ask them to let you go down into the cellars. See if you don't find these old cells where the servants of travelers were shut up at night." When Reverend Thomas James , a missionary and freedman from New York, was granted permission by the U.S. Army to liberate Louisville's slave jails in February 1865 he found hundreds of people still in

192-437: A literary device to present his speculations of a perfect society. Leinster's story, conversely, introduced the concept to the pulp science fiction readership, bringing about the creation of one of the field's subgenres. L. Sprague de Camp 's 1940 story " The Wheels of If " followed a single man as he was involuntarily transported through a series of alternate timelines. H. Beam Piper 's paratime series (1948–1965) postulated

240-505: A new, simpler means of travel that did not rely on the use of coffles. In some cases, slave traders, like Franklin & Armfield , had a network of slave depots that were located along their routes. Circa 1833, an Appalachian newspaper complained about the slave traders traveling through the region with coffles, and reported that private jails had been built by slave traders at Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk , and near Fredericksburg . According to Nile's Weekly Register of Baltimore in

288-445: A place for the guard. Small square windows between the center hall and each of the cells permitted passage of food and water without opening the cell doors. Each cell has iron rings fastened to the walls for use in chaining prisoners. The few small exterior windows are double ironbarred, one set of bars recessed into the logs and the other bolted to the outside; the wooden-barred entrance door is also double, giving greater security. All of

336-570: A rule, in all such places, the floor was the only bed, a dirty blanket was the only covering, a miscellaneous bundle the only pillow. A 1928 history described jail cells built on the Maryland farm of trader George Kephart : "...Mr. Kephart was probably the largest slavedealer in the county. He had two underground jails built where he kept the unruly, as well as a brick jail above ground." Some jails may have been tidy and officious operations, but many or most were not. Henry Bibb described one jail where he

384-512: A shipment south, but were only rarely the site of slave sales, in part because the profit for the trader was sure to be higher in the Deep South , closer to the labor-hungry plantations of the cotton and sugar districts. Dedicated marts, depots, and lockups were by no means ubiquitous, but the slave trade itself was: "The slave trade took place in nearly every town and city in the South. In most, however,

432-588: Is a list of notable buildings, structures, and landmarks (etc.), that were used in the slave trade in the United States . Different markets may well have been known for different "products". One historian wrote of New Orleans, "It was in the rotunda of the St. Louis Hotel that pulchritudinous slave girls, usually far removed in complexion from the sable hue of the typical slave women, were oftenest to be obtained. The auctioneers' stands were solid blocks of masonry placed between

480-435: Is presented to a work under 60,000 words in length. The Long-Form award is presented to a work or works longer than 60,000 words, which may include a single novel or a multi-volume series. The judges have four times also recognized an individual with a Special Achievement Award in recognition for works published prior to the award's inception or for other contributions to the genre. Note: The Sidewise Awards are announced as for

528-408: Is set in world whose inhabitants, like those of "Sidewise in Time", must cope with the sudden appearance of sections of other timelines. Gordon R. Dickson 's Time Storm (1977) depicts an Earth ravaged by a cosmic storm that randomly changes the historical periods of local regions, much like "Sidewise in Time". The anime series Orguss took "Sidewise in Time" as one of its inspirations, and showed

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576-722: The American Quarter in New Orleans, and at Shockoe Bottom in Richmond), or in settlements seemingly dedicated to serving planters seeking new agricultural laborers (such as Forks of the Road market in Natchez, Mississippi , and at Hamburg, S.C. , across the river from Augusta, Georgia ). Many thousands of other sales took place on the steps of county courthouses (to satisfy judgments, estates and claims), on large plantations, or anywhere else there

624-514: The Potomac River , and find on its banks a Chinese village surrounded by rice paddies. At this point, Minott reveals the true situation to the students: he knew in advance that the timeline exchanges were going to take place, and he intends to lead the students to a timeline where he can use his scientific knowledge to gain wealth and power. The party returns to Fredericksburg, which in their absence has been replaced by wilderness, and Minott informs

672-538: The Stars and Stripes , finds himself in trouble with the law when he travels into an area where the South won the American Civil War . A ferry approaching San Francisco finds the flag of Tsarist Russia flying from a grim fortress dominating the city. When a forest of sequoias appears north of Fredericksburg, Professor Minott leads an expedition of seven students from Robinson College to explore it. They reach

720-761: The Union Army to imprison Confederate soldiers. For instance, slave pens were used for this purpose in St. Louis, Missouri and Alexandria, Virginia . In Natchez, Mississippi, the Forks of the Road slave market was used by the Union soldiers to offer the formerly enslaved protection and freedom. In 2021 the site was made part of the Natchez National Historical Park . Old slave pens were also repurposed for worship and education. In Lexington, Kentucky, Lewis Robards ' slave jail

768-484: The "practice which has been recently adopted by negro traders, I know not who, of parading their slaves for sale, on the narrow trottoir in front of the City Hotel , Common street...I have very frequently found much difficulty in making my way through the rank and file of men, women and children, there daily exhibited." Many, if not most, hotels in southern cities were also de facto slave markets and slave jails. In 1884,

816-450: The 1840s, "The procurement of from fifty to three hundred slaves is a work of days, sometimes of weeks or months. Many plantations must be visited by the trader and his agents. Then a variety of circumstances occasions necessary delays, before the gang can be put in motion for the south. During this period the slaves are secured by handcuffs, fetters, and chains, and put into some place of confinement. The national prison at Washington city, and

864-695: The 1850s, future Confederate military leader Nathan Bedford Forrest operated a heavily advertised negro mart on Adams Street in Memphis. In January 1860, the New York Times reported that the Forrest & Jones negro mart in Memphis had collapsed and caught fire; two people died but the bills of sale for people, "amounting in the aggregate to US$ 400,000 (equivalent to about $ 13,564,440 in 2023)" were salvaged. A description of "the negro mart of Poindexter & Little " in New Orleans, Louisiana states: "In this mart

912-591: The American Civil War , a Roman Empire which never fell, enduring Viking colonization of America, Russia keeping its 19th-century colonies in Pacific America, Chinese colonists finding their way to America. The idea of a scholar using a cataclysmic event to make himself the ruler of primitive people was taken up by S. M. Stirling in the Nantucket and Emberverse series, where the main villains do this repeatedly. Slave pen Slave markets and slave jails in

960-463: The Craig family. There are no contemporary references to the jail, but the building itself bears ample evidence of the purposes for which it was used. And it could only have been used as a plantation jail, for the nearest town, Lake Village , then a mere hamlet, is five miles away. The jail is about thirty-two feet long by twenty-four feet wide, constructed of six-inch-square rough-sawed oak timbers notched at

1008-640: The Earth's surface begin changing places with their counterparts in alternate timelines. A Roman legion from a timeline where the Roman Empire never fell appears on the outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri . Viking longships from a timeline where the Vikings settled North America raid a seaport in Massachusetts . A traveling salesman from Louisville, Kentucky , whose van bears a commercial logo including Uncle Sam with

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1056-547: The Golden Age , Isaac Asimov writes that "Sidewise in Time" had a long-term effect on his thinking. "It always made me conscious of the 'ifs' in history, and this showed up not only in my science fiction, as in ' The Red Queen's Race ', but in my serious books on history as well. I also used the alternate-history theme, in enormous complexity, in my novel The End of Eternity ." Themes touched upon by Leinster would be taken up at greater length by others: Confederate victory in

1104-460: The Lower South." Slave traders traveled to farms and small towns to buy enslaved people to bring to market. Slave owners also delivered people they wanted to dispense with. Enslaved people were placed in pens to await being sold, and they could become quite crowded. In New Orleans, most sales were made between September and May. Buyers visited the slave pen and inspected enslaved people prior to

1152-528: The Negroes were classified and seated on benches, as goods are arranged on shelves in a well-regulated store. The cooks, mechanics, farm-hands, house-girls, seamstresses, washwomen, barbers, and boys each had their own place." During the Civil War, Gideon J. Pillow wrote a complaint letter to the effect that U.S. Army troops had robbed him of his slaves, and killed or jailed his overseers; he wanted someone to check if

1200-514: The United States were places used for the slave trade in the United States from the founding in 1776 until the total abolition of slavery in 1865. Slave pens , also known as slave jails, were used to temporarily hold enslaved people until they were sold, or to hold fugitive slaves , and sometimes even to "board" slaves while traveling. Slave markets were any place where sellers and buyers gathered to make deals. Some of these buildings had dedicated slave jails, others were negro marts to showcase

1248-478: The best alternate history stories and novels of the year, was named in honor of "Sidewise in Time". Professor Minott is a mathematician at Robinson College in Fredericksburg, Virginia who has determined that an apocalyptic cataclysm is fast approaching that could destroy the entire universe. The cataclysm manifests itself on June 5, 1935 (one year in the future of the story's original publication) when sections of

1296-474: The brightest hours of natural light through the rotunda windows. Outdoor slave markets were sometimes controversial. Charleston banned outdoor sales in 1856 and the traders protested that the ban might subtly send a message that there was something wrong with buying and selling people. And in 1837 a correspondent named D wrote to the New Orleans Times-Picayune complaining of being inconvenienced by

1344-426: The corners and fastened together at frequent intervals with large iron spikes. Interior partitions and ceilings are of the same construction. There are four compartments in the jail: two small cells at one end, a narrow entrance hall running the width of the building in the center, and a large cell at the other end. The interior subdivision evidently was to permit segregation of male and female slaves, and also to provide

1392-731: The existence of a civilization that could travel at will across the timelines, a theme echoed in Larry Niven 's " All the Myriad Ways " (1968), Frederik Pohl 's The Coming of the Quantum Cats (1986), and Harry Turtledove 's Crosstime Traffic series (2003–2008). Other stories dealing with travel to parallel timelines include Isaac Asimov 's " Living Space " (1956), Keith Laumer 's Imperium series (1962–1990), Jack Vance 's "Rumfuddle" (1973), and Jack L. Chalker 's G.O.D. Inc trilogy (1987–1989). Lawrence Watt-Evans ' story "Storm Trooper" (1992)

1440-430: The hardware is made of heavy, hand-forged iron. The jail is so massive and well-constructed that breaking out of it would have been very difficult." The Smithsonian magazine states that "[t]hese were sites of brutal treatment and unbearable sorrow, as callous and avaricious slave traders tore apart families, separating husbands from wives, and children from their parents." During the Civil War, slave pens were used by

1488-672: The house of M. Garrison". A negro mart was usually a type of urban retail market, usually consisting of a dedicated showroom and/or a workyard, a jail, and storerooms or kitchens for food. Negro marts were urban "clearinghouses" that both acquired enslaved people from more rural districts and sold people for use as farm, skilled, or domestic labor. The term negro mart was most commonly used in Charleston, South Carolina , but can also be found in Memphis, Tennessee , multiple locations in Georgia , et al. In

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1536-480: The legal owners of everyone incarcerated within, and the business of jailing was distinct from the business of trading. For instance Matthew Garrison , who was both a slave trader and jail owner in Louisville, Kentucky, submitted a bill for "boarding slaves" to the county chancery court adjudicating a dispute over estate slaves , while W. H. DeJarnatt advertised that four slaves he was listing for sale could "be seen at

1584-405: The lofty columns which supported the domed roof. At one side of the rotunda were rooms where slaves might be confined temporarily, when necessary, or where men and women might be taken to undergo inspection by prospective purchasers more detailed than was possible in public. Hamilton, who was in the United States in 1843, and published a book about what he saw in New Orleans, adds a final touch: 'When

1632-581: The pens, "many confined in leg irons," and nine more in the National Hotel . Some slave owners may have had jails on their land for just their own personal slaves. A photo album of historic spots in Mississippi that was created about 1937 by the WPA Federal Writers' Project has a photo of a pleasant-looking house with a caption that reads, "Above: Sea Glen, Hancock County, Old Claiborne Plantation. It

1680-464: The sale. People were held until their means of transportation was arranged. They were transported in groups by boat, walked to their new owners, or a combination of the two. They were moved in groups in a coffle . This meant that people were chained together with iron rings around their necks which were fastened with wooden or iron bars. Men on horseback herded the groups, or coffles, to their destination. They used dogs, guns, and whips. Railroads brought

1728-630: The slaves offered for sale, and still others were general auction or market houses where a wide variety of business was conducted, of which "negro trading" was just one part. The term slave depot was commonly used in New Orleans in the 1850s. Slave trading was often done in business clusters where many trading firms operated in close proximity. Such clusters existed on specific streets (such as Pratt Street in Baltimore , Adams Street in Memphis , or Cherry Street in Nashville ), in specific neighborhoods (in

1776-646: The state prisons, are prostituted to this use when occasion requires. The more extensive slave-dealers have private prisons constructed expressly for this purpose." Lumpkin's Jail , the largest in the state of Virginia, was a particularly inhumane place that resulted in people dying of starvation, illness, or beating. They were so cramped that they were sometimes on top of one another. There were no toilet facilities. Swedish writer Fredrika Bremer described slave pens she saw on her travels in America as "great garrets without beds, chairs or tables." Per Frederic Bancroft , "As

1824-410: The students that they cannot return to their original timeline. That night, an airplane from their own timeline makes a crash landing near Minott's party. Before the pilot dies, they learn from him that Washington, D.C. from their timeline was still in place. A student named Blake wants to make for Washington, but Minott refuses. The forest catches fire from the burning airplane, and the party flees to

1872-683: The trade did not have a permanent physical location. Commonly, slaves were sold on court days, usually outdoors at a location near the courthouse, yet those cities with a large slave market had a significant infrastructure dedicated to the buying and selling of humans." New Orleans was the great slave market of the lower Mississippi watershed—with hundreds of traders and a score of slave pens—but there were also markets and sales "at Donaldsonville , Clinton , and East Baton Rouge in Louisiana; at Natchez , Vicksburg , and Jackson in Mississippi; at every roadside tavern, county courthouse, and crossroads across

1920-568: The women and children, particularly, were "confined in the Ware house or Negro Mart." It was not uncommon to hold sales or auctions outdoors in the pre- air-conditioning South; the plaza north of the Charleston Exchange may be the most enduring and notable of these locations. Similarly, rather than depending on candles, kerosene, whale oil, or gaslights, the noon-to-three trading hours of the St. Louis Hotel in New Orleans probably took advantage of

1968-558: The women in the party joins him, while the rest of the students return to their timeline. The students are able to contact the rest of the world and inform them of Minott's deductions about the event. Within two weeks, the timeline exchanges trail off, leaving bits and pieces of other timelines embedded in our own. "Sidewise in Time" was among the first science fiction stories about parallel universes . In 1903 H. G. Wells wrote " A Modern Utopia " in which people from our timeline were shown traveling to another, but Wells used this mainly as

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2016-522: The world caught in a trap of constantly changing territories of alternate-Earths. The setting of Fred Hoyle 's October the First Is Too Late (1966) is similar to that of Leinster's story, except that the segments of Earth which are brought together and interact with each other are from different historical periods, rather than from different parallel histories. In his comments on the story in Before

2064-489: The year of publication rather than by the year of award presentation. Sidewise in Time " Sidewise in Time " is a science fiction short story by American writer Murray Leinster that was first published in the June 1934 issue of Astounding Stories . "Sidewise in Time" served as the title story for Leinster's second story collection in 1950. The Sidewise Award for Alternate History , established in 1995 to recognize

2112-627: Was a slave owner who needed cash in order to settle a debt or pay off a bad bet. A slave market could operate without a dedicated jail, and a jail could operate without an associated market. For example, the grand hotels of New Orleans, and the Artesian Basin in Montgomery, Alabama, were important slave markets not known for their prison facilities. A number of slave jails in the Upper South were used for holding people until slave traders had enough for

2160-419: Was commandeered by the U.S. military at the conclusion of the Civil War. It was later described as having four stars on the sign out front; the windows of the upper stories had iron grates, and among the abandoned detritus were "bills of sale for slaves by the hundreds," business correspondence, "handcuffs, whips, and staples for tying, etc." The building turned into a school for formerly enslaved children. This

2208-533: Was held as repugnant "on account of the filth and dirt of the most disagreeable kind...there were bedbugs, fleas, lice and mosquitoes in abundance to contend with. At night we had to lie down on the floor in this filth. Our food was very scanty, and of the most inferior quality. No gentleman's dog would eat what we were compelled to eat or starve." St. Louis slave trader Bernard M. Lynch offered jailing services to owners for 37½ cents per slave per day. The owners or operators of private slave jails were not necessarily

2256-522: Was here that J. F. H. Claiborne lived during the early 1800s and where he attempted the commercial production of sea island cotton . The old slave dungeon and the cotton press remain." Historian Orville W. Taylor described a surviving plantation jail in his Negro Slavery in Arkansas (1958): "A well-preserved slave jail still stands on Yellow Bayou Plantation in Chicot County , owned during slavery days by

2304-508: Was used as a Congregational church by African Americans. A freedmen's seminary, now Virginia Union University , was established in Lumpkin's Jail . Known as the "devil's half acre", a founder of the seminary James B. Simmons said that it would now be "God's half acre". A slave pen in Montgomery, Alabama became Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. A site formerly called A. Bryan's Negro Mart in Georgia,

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