Archaeologists will peel away a downtown Richmond parking lot to reveal what was once a bustling slave-trading center.

By some estimates, the former Confederate capital saw 300,000 slaves bought and sold from 1808 to the end of the Civil War. That would rank Richmond second only to New Orleans in the slave trade during that period.

Construction equipment was poised Thursday at the former site of Lumpkin's Slave Jail, where slaves were held for auctions that attracted buyers from the throughout the South.

The city's historic Shockoe Bottom was then a slave-trading hub.

Lumpkin's Jail was named after Robert Lumpkin, described by one contemporary as a "bully trader" for his rough tactics.