If you are Sold Down The River you’ve been misled and a promise or other assurances have not been met. The phrase comes from America and relates to slavery in the 1800s. Wealthy landowners would pick certain slaves they regarded as suitable to live on their estates with their families in relative comfort. Some were even promised this lifestyle as they were leaving Africa, India and the East Indies in search of a better future. In reality, however, those regarded unsuitable to live with the families were put on a boat and sent down the Mississippi river where they were sold as slave labour to the plantations. In these places the living conditions were appalling and the wretched people had been well and truly “sold down the river” by the land of opportunity.