NEW ORLEANS (AP) - As New Orleans celebrates its 300th birthday, efforts are underway to take a harder look at one aspect of The Big Easy's history: its role as the largest slave market in the Deep South.

The Advocate reports two groups plan to install markers explaining the city's connection with the slave trade.

University of Alabama professor Joshua Rothman says an estimated 135,000 people were bought and sold in New Orleans between 1804 and 1862. The New Orleans Committee to Erect Historic Markers on the Slave Trade has placed markers at the Moonwalk along the Mississippi River and at the intersection of Esplanade Avenue and Chartres Street.

Meanwhile, the Tricentennial Commission-affiliated New Orleans Slave Trade Marker and App Project plans to place six markers at sites where slaves were traded.