Collection created through a Samuel S. Fels Community Fellowship Grant in 2003 of over 300 book and periodical illustrations from the 16th - to 19th -centuries depicting all aspects of African American history and life.

Images range in date from 1595 (Giralomo Benzoni, Americae Pars Quinta) to 1914 (John Wesley Cromwell, The Negro in American History) and include views from 17th through 19th centuries travel and history texts of the social life and agricultural, industrial, and craft work of African peoples; graphics from the antislavery movements in France, Great Britain, and the United States detailing the brutality of slave life and the violence of slave resistance; and a selection of racist caricatures and cartoons from the 19th century reflecting the growing denigration and dehumanizing of African Americans in the era’s American popular print culture.

Pages

The festival [graphic] / Whitney & Annin sc.
Set at Buckingham Hall, a fictional plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, this pro-slavery image presents a scene of general merriment. In accordance with the wishes of their benevolent master, Col. Buckingham, the slaves celebrate a "holiday and festival." Jerry, the leader of the band, sits upon a hogshead and plays his fiddle. Next to him, others play banjos, bones, and other instruments for the entertainment of a group of dancers. Other slaves eat ("from a fatted calf"), drink ("something better than water"), and socialize. Col. Buckingham and his family enjoy the festivites from a raised platform in a tree to the right., Illustration in Robert Criswell's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" contrasted with Buckingham Hall, the planter's home; or, A fair view of both sides of the slavery question (New York: Printed and published by D. Fanshaw, No. 108 Nassau-street, 1852), p. 112., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
La figure des moulins a sucre [graphic] / A. W. delin. ; H.B. s.
Set on a plantation, the illustration features a sugar mill and shows the initial phases of sugar production. Mill is powered by oxen (Fig. A), who rotate a large axel that turns the rollers (Figs. C and G) into which slaves feed stalks of sugar cane (Fig. L). The juice that has been extracted from the process flows into a basin (Fig. E). Once collected, the juice is heated in vats (Fig. K). Slaves skim off impurities in the presence of planters., Double-page plate in Charles de Rochefort's Histoire naturelle et morale Iles Antilles de l'Amerique (Rotterdam: Chez Reinier Leers, M.DC.LXXXI [1681], p. 332., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
The first day of the yam custom [graphic] / Drawn by T.E. Bowdich Esq. ; Engraved by R. Havell & Son.
Depicts the annual yam festival, a large public ceremony held at the beginning of the yam harvest in September. It includes a vast and diverse array of figures: the King, his warriors, dancers, musicians, officers of the foreign mission, Moors, and various onlookers. Toward the center of the scene, the King sits underneath the state umbrella, which is bright red, topped by a golden elephant, and flanked by the flags of Great Britain, Holland, and Denmark. The children of the nobility sit at the King's feet, waving elephant tails. A procession of dancers approaches the King; those at the front beat skulls decorated with thyme. Farther to the left, a bloody prisoner is being led by two of the King's messengers. In the background, Odumata, an aged aristocrat, is being carried in the state hammock. At the extreme left, a group of captains dance in a circle, firing their guns. At the far right, a group of Moors watch the festivities. Closer to the center, officers of the mission can be seen. Their linguists sit in front of them; their soldiers and servants stand behind them., Fold-out plate in T. Edward Bowdich's Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee: with a Statistical Account of that Kingdom, and Geographical Notices of Other Parts of the Interior of Africa (London: J. Murray, Albemarle-Street: printed by W. Pulmer and Co., Cleveland-Row, St. James's, 1819), p. 274., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Flagellation of a female Samboe slave [graphic] / Blake sculpt.
Engraving was done after one of John Gabriel Stedman's own drawings; it illustrates an incident that he witnessed during his travels in Surinam. According to Stedman's account, the image shows a beautiful Samboe girl of about eighteen, who was tied by both arms to a tree limb and flagellated by two overseers in such a manner that "she was from her neck to her ancles [sic] literally dyed over with blood." When Stedman reached her, she had already received 200 lashes, and he begged one of the overseers to let her down. At this point, however, the overseer explained that, in order to prevent strangers from interfering with his government, he had made an unalterable rule to double any slave's punishment when a stranger tried to intervene on his or her behalf. The girl thus received another 200 lashes., Plate XXXV in John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative, of a five year's expedition, against the revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America; from the year 1772 to 1777 (London: Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church Yard, & J. Edwards, Pall Mall, 1796) vol. I, facing p. 326., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
The flogging of females [graphic].
This scene is set in the West Indies. A female slaveowner dressed in colonial attire whips the back of a female slave who is hunched forward and whose hands appear to be bound. To the left, another white female sits in a chair and watches. To the right, three West Indians -- a man, a woman, and a child -- look on in horror., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol I, no. 10 (October, 1835), p. 109., Small caption underneath the image reads: "What ! -- the whip on WOMAN's shrinking flesh!", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
Flogging of the slave girl Juliana, about five or six years of age, in Jamaica, &c. [graphic].
Image shows Juliana, a young West Indian slave girl, being flogged by her mistress, Eleanor Whitehead, with a cat of six tails. Juliana is streched out on the floor, and her mistress, dressed in voluminous skirts and elaborate finery, looms over her threateningly., Illustration in the pamphlet Flogging of the Slave Girl Juliana, about Five or Six Years of Age, in Jamaica &c. (London: Sold at the Depository; and by Harvey & Darton; Houlston and Son; Edmund Fry; E. Albright, London; and other booksellers, 1830?). (Bagster and Thomas, printers)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
Flogging the Negro. [graphic] / Vanigen - Snyder.
According to this account, the engraving shows a court-ordered public flogging that took place in Lexington, Missouri in 1856. The slave's offense was defending his wife (seen on the ground to the left) from an abusive blacksmith. In response, the court ruled that the slave was to receive 1,000 lashes. These were to be administered by three citizens, including the blacksmith, who was allowed to initiate the punishment. Here, the blacksmith flogs the slave with a paddle, while two other men (seen to the left and right) crack their whips. A small black girl prays at the feet of the flogged slave; others look on., Illustration in the Suppressed Book about Slavery! (New York: Carleton, 1864), p. 240., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Imagery.
A free negress and other market-women [graphic] / On Stone by C. Shoosmith from a Sketch by Jas. Henderson.
Illustration accompanies Chapter III, "Province of Rio de Jainero." As the title suggests, it depicts a free negress (presumably the woman closest to the left) and three market women. A small child, not mentioned in the title, is visible at the far left. Sheltered by a small canopy, the four women sell fruits and vegetables: pineapples occupy a basket in the right foreground, melons and squash (?) are scattered on the ground, and two women balance baskets on their heads. Three large sacks contain additional market-goods, possibly beans. While it is ultimately unclear, the image appears to show a conflict between the negress and the market-woman seated on the bench., Illustration in James Henderson's A History of Brazil: Comprising its Geography, Commerce, Colonization, Aboriginal Inhabitants, &c. &c. (London: Printed for the author, and published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orne, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1821), p. 70., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
A freeholder's court [graphic] / F.E. Fox sc.
Engraving portrays an episode described in Hildreth's fictional narrative. A court of five Carolina freeholders, selected "at hap-hazard," falsely convicted a slave named Billy for plundering the rice-fields of a neighboring plantation, and sentenced him to death. As Hildreth wrote, "the sentence was no sooner pronounced than preparations were made for its execution. An empty barrel was brought out, and placed under a tree that stood before the door. The poor fellow was mounted upon it; the halter was put about his neck, and fastened to a limb over his head. The judges had already become so drunk as to have lost all sense of judicial decorum. One of them kicked away the barrel, and the unhappy victim of Carolina justice dropped struggling into eternity." (p. 197), Frontispiece for Richard Hildreth's Archy Moore, the White Slave; or Memoirs of a Fugitive (New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
[The freeman's defense] [graphic].
Engraving depicts an episode from chapter 17. Atop a rocky embankment, George and Phineas defend themselves, Eliza and Harry, and Jim Selden and his aged mother from an approaching group that includes Marks, Uncle Tom, and two constables., Illustration in the first German translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (Oheim Tom's Hütte) printed in America (Boston: John P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor, and Worthington, 1853), p. 79., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
[Friedenstahl in St. Croix] [graphic] / C.G.A.O. pinx ; G.P. Nussbiegel sc. Nor.
As the caption suggests, the image is set on the island of St. Croix in early May 1769, and it shows a group of black baptismal candidates being led into the "Negro church," for baptism. Dressed in long white robes, trousers, and turban-like head-dresses, the men file into the church first. They are followed by the women, who are dressed in long white dresses and white caps. In front of the long, simple hall that serves as the church, some black women sit in a courtyard bordered by trees and shubbery. According to the caption, the ceremony takes place around noon. Missionaries, soldiers, and black citizens (all men) meet and converse in the open space in front of the church. Others watch the procession of baptismal candidates;some appear to pray, holding their palms upward. The missionaries' quarters appear in the background of the image, while the Negroes' quarters are seen to the right., Folded plate at the back of Christian Georg Andreas Oldendorp's Geschichte der Mission der Evangelischen Brüder auf den caraibischen Inseln S. Thomas, S. Croix, und S. Jan (Barby: Bey Christian Friedrich Laux, und in Leipzig in Commission bey Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1777), n.p., Caption underneath the image reads: "Friedenstahl in St. Croix an einem Bettage, da die Täuflinge zur Taufe in Kirche geführt werden, 1768 zu Anfang May und zu Mittage, da die Sonne übern Scheitel steht, aller Schatten senckrecht faellt, überhaupt weing Schatten ist. Hinten das Wohnhaus, zur linken die Neger Kirche, zur rechten Negerhaeufer." The text can be translated as follows, "Friedenstahl in St. Croix on a day of prayer, on which the baptismal candidates are led into church for baptism, Wednesday, the beginning of May, 1769, because the sun is at its apex, all shadows fall perpendicular to the ground, there is little shade. In the background, the missionaries' quarters; to the left, the Negro church; to the right, Negro quarters.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
[Frontispiece for Histoire philosophique et politique] [graphic] / Ch. Eisen del. ; N. Delaunay Sulpt.
In the central foreground, a female slave is purchased by a European planter (left), who completes the transaction by giving a sack of coins to a slave merchant. Chained and shackled, the slave leans over and covers her face in despair. Behind her, several Europeans congregate in the tropical landscape. A vessel, presumably a slave-ship, is docked in the background., Frontispiece for Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal's Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements & du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (A Maestricht: Chez Jean-Edme Dufour & Philippe Roux, imprimeurs & libraires, associés, M.DCC.LXXVII [1777])., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Images from the Slave Trade.
[Frontispiece for the Curious Adventures of Captain Stedman] [graphic].
Image relates to an episode that Captain John Stedman witnessed during his travels in Surinam, and went on to describe in his text, Narrative, of a five year's expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America; from the year 1772 to 1777 (London: Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church Yard, & J. Edwards, Pall Mall, 1796). In the corresponding passage, Stedman described how a beautiful Samboe girl of about eighteen was tied by both arms to a tree limb and flagellated by two overseers in such a manner that "she was from her neck to her ancles [sic] literally dyed over with blood." When Stedman arrived on the scene, the girl had already received 200 lashes, and he begged one of the overseers to let her down. At this point, the overseer explained that, in order to prevent strangers from interfering with his government, he had made an unalterable rule to double any slave's punishment when a stranger tried to intervene on his or her behalf. To Stedman's utter dismay, the girl thus received another 200 lashes. Stedman's own 1796 text included an illustration of this terrible episode: an engraving done by William Blake after one of Stedman's drawings. Like Blake's engraving, the 1809 aquatint shows the two black overseers who carried out the girl's punishment, the planter who presumably ordered it, and the slave girl herself. The aquatint, however, differs substantially in style, composition, and interpretation., Folded frontispiece for the Curious Adventures of Captain Stedman, during an expedition to Surinam in 1773 (London: Printed for Thomas Tegg [1809])., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
[Frontispiece for the Dying Negro] [graphic] / C. Metz del. ; J. Neagle sc.
Aboard a ship, a partially clothed slave uses a dagger to cut through the chains and shackles that bind him. With one arm raised above his head, he looks toward heaven in an offeratory manner. Behind him, two white men are seen at work. A quill, an ink-well, an overturned barrel, a British flag, and other items are visible in the background., Frontispiece for Thomas Day's the Dying Negro: a Poem (London: Printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, 1793)., Accompanied by the following inscription: "To you this unpolluted blood I pour. / To you that Spirit which ye gave restore.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance Imagery.
The fugitive slave law in operation [graphic] / A. Bobbett sc.
Illustration accompanies Poore's critical commentary on the consequences of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the manner in which fugitive slaves in northern states were returned to the South. Here, two armed authorities forcibly remove a black man from his home while a kneeling black child appears to beg for mercy., Illustration in Benjamin Perley Poore's Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis (Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers, c1886), p. 454., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
The fugitives [graphic] / J.H. Goater del ; N. Orr Co. sc.
Engraving depicts an episode from Chapter XIV, "How the Flight Ended." Here, the fictional characters Maum Guinea, Rose, and Hyperion, fugitive slaves hiding in a cavern, are discovered by a party of whites that includes a colonel and a judge., Illustration in Metta Victoria Fuller Victor's Maum Guinea, and her plantation "children" (London: Beadle and Company,44 Paternoster Row; New York: Beadle and Company, 141 William Street, 1861), p. 206., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
The fugitive's song [graphic] / designed by E.W. Bouvé.
Backed by a large tree, a fugitive slave representing Frederick Douglass runs away from a river-bank, and heads in the direction of New England (as evidenced by the sign in the background right). The party in pursuit of him, two mounted figures and a pack of dogs, can be seen on the other side of the river in the distant background. The fugitive slave (Douglass) wears unsoiled white pants, a neat striped shirt, and no shoes; he carries a bundle on a stick., Sheet music cover for J. Hutchinson (lyrics) and J.M. White's (music), The Fugitive's Song (Boston: Published by Henry Prentiss, 33 Court St., 1845)., Dedication underneath the image reads: "Words / composed and respectfully dedicated, in token of confidential esteem to / Frederick Douglass / a Graduate from the / "Peculiar Institution" / For his fearless advocacy, signal ability and wonderful success in behalf of / his brothers in bonds. / (and to the fugitives from slavery in the ) / Free States & Canadas. / by their friend / Jesse Hutchinson Junr.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
[Funeral in Negroland] [graphic].
The engraving shows a funeral rite, or fakotima, in Negroland. In this scene, the funeral orations have already ended, and the deceased has been propped up on a platform. According to Ogibly, when the deceased was a man (as is the case here), his friends put "a Bowe and Arrow into his hand, and arrayed him with his best Garment." Then, they offered presents, "one Needles, another a Kettle or Bason; the third a Garment; a fourth Dishes, and Earthen and Tin Cups." In this engraving, the kinsmen of the deceased play with bows and arrows in front of the corspe, as was customary., Illustration in John Ogilby's Africa: Being an Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid: the Land of Negroes, Guinee, and Aethiopia, and Abyssines, with all the Adjacent Islands, either in the Mediterranean, Atlantick, Southern, or Oriental Sea, Belonging Thereunto (London: Printed by Tho. Johnson, for the author, and are to be had at his house in White Fryers, M.DC.LXX [1670]), p. 394., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Gang of captives met at Mbame's on their way to Tette [graphic] / J.W. Whymper sc.
Engraving accompanies Chapter XVIII of Livingstone's travel narratives; it portrays an incident that he witnessed in the village of his friend Mbame. As Livingstone explained, " . . . [a] slave party, a long line of manacled men, women, and children, came wending their way round the hill and into the valley, on the side which the village stood. The black drivers, armed with muskets, and bedecked with various articles of finery, marched jauntily in the front, middle, and rear of the line; some of them blowing exultant notes out of long tin horns." (p. 356) Livingstone noted, however, that the black drivers fled as soon as they saw him and his fellow Englishmen. Livingstone and his party thus freed the captives (who were most likely Manganja). "It was more difficult to cut the men adrift," he wrote, "as each had his neck in the fork of a stout stick, six or seven feet long, and kept in by an iron rod, which was riveted at both end across the throat. With a saw, . . . one by one the men were sawn out into freedom." (p. 356-57), Plate in David Livingstone's Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries: and of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864 (London: John Murray, 1865), p. 356., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
Gang of slaves journeying to be sold in a Southern market [graphic] / W.H. Brooke F.S.A. ; F. Holl.
Driven by mounted men with whips, a large procession of bound slaves travels down a shallow creek. Some of the slaves hold children in their arms; others carry baskets and bundles on their heads. A family of free blacks watches from the banking on the left., Illustrated plate in James Silk Buckingham's The Slave States of America (London; Paris: Fisher, Son, & Co. Newgate St. London; rue St. Honoré, Paris [1842]), vol. 2, p. 552., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Images from the Slave Trade.
Gate and slave market at Pernambuco [graphic] / Drawn by Aug. Earle ; Engraved by Edw. Finden.
The image shows the gate and slave market in Pernambuco, Brazil, of which Callcott offered the following description: "It was thinly stocked, owing to the circumstances of the town; which cause most of the owners of new slaves to keep them closely shut up in the depôts. Yet about fifty young creatures, boys and girls, with all the appearance of disease and famine consequent upon scanty food and long confinement in unwholesome places, were sitting and lying about among the fithiest animals in the streets." (p. 105) Later, she wrote: "Scores of these poor creatures are seen at different corners of the streets, in all the listlessness of despair -- and if an infant attempts to crawl from among them, in search of infantile amusement, a look of pity is all the sympathy he excites." Accordingly, in the lower lefthand corner of the scene, a toddler crawls toward the sidewalk, reaching out to a free market-woman., Illustration from Lady Maria Callcott's Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, and Residence there, during Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster-Row; and J. Murray, Albemarle-Street, 1824), p. 106., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Images from the Slave Trade.
[Getaufte Neger] [graphic].
Episode follows the baptism of several blacks under the authority of the Moravian Church. Three men, presumably the pastor and two deacons, stand to the far right. The baptismal font, a large barrel, rests on the floor in front of them. According to the caption, the image depicts newly baptized blacks who, after praying and prostrating themselves, are helped to their feet and kissed by other members of the community. Two groups of parishoners -- one consisting entirely of men, the other of women -- watch from the left., Fold-out plate at the back of David Cranz's Kurze, zuverlässige Nachricht von der, unter dem Namen der Böhmisch-Mährischen Brüder bekanten Kirche Unitas Fratrum (Halle: s.n., 1757), plate NVII., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Gezo, King of Dahomey [graphic] / F.E. Forbes, del. ; M. & N. chromo lith.
Portrait image of King Gezo [i.e. Gezu], who ruled the Kingdom of Dahomey (now part of southern Benin) from 1818-1858. Through the help of the slave-trade, Dahomey flourished during the 18th and 19th century, and is said to have reached its highpoint during Gezu's rule. In the lithograph, the king is shown with one of his attendants, who holds a parasol over his head. In Part II, "Abomey, its Court and its People," Forbes described King Gezo as "about forty-eight years of age, good-looking, with nothing of the negro feature, his complexion wanting several shades of being black; his appearance commanding, and his countenance intellectual, though stern in the extreme. That he is proud there can be no doubt, for he treads the earth as if it were honoured by its burden. Were it not for the slight cast in his eye, he would be a handsome man. Contrasted with the gaudy attire of his ministers, wives, and caboceers (of every hue, and laden with coral, gold, silver, and brass ornaments), the king was plainly dressed, in a loose robe of yellow silk slashed with satins stars and half-moons, Mandingo sandals, and a Spanish hat trimmed with gold lace; the only ornament being a small gold chain of European manufacture." (vol. 1, p. 76-77), Frontispiece for Frederick E. Forbes's Dahomey and the Dahomans: Being the Journey of Two Missions to the King of Dahomey, and his Residence at the Capital, in the Years 1849 and 1850 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851), vol. 1., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Group of Negroes as imported to be sold for slaves [graphic] / Blake sculpt.
Engraving was done after one of John Gabriel Stedman's own drawings; it shows a procession of slaves that he encountered during his travels in Surinam. Of the group, Stedman wrote, "They were a drove of newly-imported negroes, men and women, with a few children, who were just landed from on board a Guinea ship that lay anchor in the roads, to be sold for slaves. The whole party was such a set of scarcely animated automatons, such a resurrection of skin and bones, as forcibly reminded me of the last trumpet. These objects appeared that moment to be risen from the grave, or escaped from Surgeon's Hall; and I confess I can give no better description of them, than by comparing them to walking skeletons covered over with a piece of tanned leather." (vol. 1, p. 200) Stedman eventually continued, "Before these wretches, which might be in all about sixty in number, walked a sailor, and another followed behind with a bamboo-rattan; the one serving as a shepherd to lead them along, and the other as his dog to worry them occasionally, should any one lag behind, or wander away from the flock." (vol. 1, p. 200) He noted, however, that despite their condition, the slaves' facial expressions betrayed little dejectedness -- a point reflected in Blake's engraving., Plate XXII in John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative, of a five year's expedition, against the revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana, on the wild coast of South America; from the year 1772 to 1777 (London: Printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul's Church Yard, & J. Edwards, Pall Mall, 1796), vol. 1, p. 200., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Images from the Slave Trade.
Habillement des grands / Habillement des Femmes du Roy [graphic].
The plate accompanies Chapter VIII, "Mouers & Coûtumes du Royaume de Juda." The engraving on the left shows the dress of the nobility and the King's wives in Juda (now in French Guiana). Their headwear is particularly notable, with the King's wife wearing a tall straw bonnet. The image on the right shows various weapons, tools, and musical instruments used by the people of Juda, and includes an iron flute, a drum, a hoe, a bow and arrow, and swords made from iron and wood., Fold-out plate in Jean Baptiste Labat's Voyage du chevalier Des Marchais en Guinée, isles voisines, et a Cayenne, Fait en 1725, 1726, & 1727 (A Amsterdam: aux dépens de la Compaigne, M.DCC.XXXI [1731], vol. 2, p. 194., The key underneath the engraving on the left reads as follows: "1. Instrument fait en Visse rempli d'anneaux de Cuivre au bout du quel est un Coq de Cuivre servant a la musique du Roy. 2. Cruche de terre Couverte de peau servant de tambour pour les Femmes du Roy. 3. Panier dozier rempli de Cocquilles qui sert a la musique du Roy.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Habitation Nègre [graphic] / Dessine d'après nature par Mr. Douville et lithé par Noguès ; Lith. de Engelmann.
Depiction of an African home, complete with a small chapel, and, as the caption notes, "structures for the inhabitants' use." Two large horns rest on the ground in front of the home., Plate 20 in Jean-Baptiste Douville's Voyage au Congo et dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique equinoxiale: fait dans les années 1828, 1829 et 1830 (A Paris: Chez Jules Renouard, libraire, rue de Tournon, n. 6; Imprimé chez Paul Renouard, rue Garencière, n. 5, 1832)., Caption underneath the image reads: (entourée des chapelles et des edifices à l'usage des habitans)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Harvest in Wanyamézi [graphic].
Illustration included in Chapter V, "Unyamuezi." Unyamuezi [i.e., Unyamwezi] was one of the largest kingdoms in East Africa; its people are called Wanyamezi. As the title suggests, the engraving shows a Wanyamezi harvest in 1861. Corn, which grew abundantly on the richly cultivated land, is shown at the top. In the center, four men thrash the corn with long-handled paddles. At the bottom, women are shown cutting, separating, and grinding the corn., Illustration in John Hanning Speke's Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1864), p. 129., According to a note on the title-page, the book's illustrations are "chiefly from drawings by Captain Grant.", Caption reads: "1, 2, 3, 4. Grain. Maize, etc., stacked for the season. 5. Men with long rackets thrashing Kafir corn (sorghum). 6. Woman in the field cutting "sorghum" with a knife, and depositing it in a basket. 7. Women separating the corn from the chaff by means of a wooden pestle and mortar. 8. Woman grinding corn upon a single slab of stone.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
[Head-frame and mouth-piece used to restrain slaves] [graphic].
From left to right, the top half of the illustration includes profile and frontal views of a male slave wearing a head-frame and mouth-piece, and a collar with long spokes and barbs that is referred to as a necklace in the text. In the upper-right quadrant of the illustration, the letter A denotes the location of the flat iron, a portion of the mouth-piece that is shown in greater detail in the bottom half of the image (to the left). A depiction of shackles and a left-hand view of the head-frame are also included., Illustration in Thomas Branagan's Penitential Tyrant (New York: Printed and sold by Samuel Wood, 1807), p. 270-71., Engraving attributed to Alexander Anderson., Accompanied by the following descriptive text: "A front and profile view of an African's head, with the mouth-piece and necklace, the hooks around which are placed to prevent an escape when pursued in the woods, and to hinder them from laying down the head to procure rest. -- At A is a flat iron which goes into the mouth, and so effectually keeps down the tongue, that nothing can be swallowed, not even the saliva, a passage for which is made through holes in the mouth-plate. An enlarged view of the mouth-piece, which, when worn, becomes so heated, as frequently to bring off the skin along with it.", Images in this work derived from oral testimony given before the British Parliament's Select Committee Appointed to Take the Examination of Witnesses Respecting the African Slave Trade originally published as An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered Before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years 1790, and 1791; on the Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade (London: printed by James Phillips, 1791). Images also issued in a number of other printed works including Remarks on the Methods of Procuring Slaves with a Short Account of Their Treatment in the West-Indies (London: printed by and for Darton and Harvey, no. 66 Gracechurch Street, MDCCXCIII [1793]; Sclaven-Handel (Philadelphia: Gedruckt fur Tobias Hirte, bey Samuel Saur, 1794); Der Neue Hoch Deutsche Americanische Calender auf das Jahr 1797 (Baltimore: Samuel Saur, 1796); Injured Humanity: Being a Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselved Christians... (New York: printed and sold by Samuel Wood, no. 362, Pearl Street, between 1805 and 1808); and The Mirror of Misery, or Tyranny Exposed (New York: printed and sold by Samuel Wood, 1807) and later editions issued in 1811 and 1814., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
Henry Diaz [graphic].
Image is set in front of the Cinco Pontas fortress in Pernambuco, Brazil. Henry Diaz, a black slave, leads a slave regiment that he assembled on behalf of the Portuguese. The slave regiment successfully captured Cinco Pontas, a former Dutch stronghold., Illustration in Lydia Childs's The Oasis (Boston: Benjamin C. Bacon: Tuttle and Weeks, printers, No. 8, School Street, 1834), p. 47., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
History of the slave, James [graphic].
Image is set in the Philadelphia-area household of a family of freed and escaped slaves. Having located the family, the slaves' owner, shown in the center, has come with two assistants to reclaim a slave named James, the man who is being forced out of the door in the background right. James's mother, an elderly freed slave named Harriet, battles with her former owner in the center of the scene. She bears the breast she once used to nurse him and begs for mercy. Harriett's husband and James's wife appear to the left, while James and Harriett's newborn baby sleeps in a cradle to the right., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. II, no. II (February, 1836), whole no. 14, p 1., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
The holiday dance [graphic] / Stephens.
Set on a plantation, this merry scene portrays a harvest dance. A man and a woman dance bare-foot to the music of a fiddler, who is perched high upon a stool. Others look on. A young man kneels in the foreground, his straw hat and hoe lying on the ground. In the background, two stocky, resolute-looking white women observe the festivities. Both wear kerchiefs, the ties of which, in one case, resemble devil's horns., Plate at the front of Charles Peterson's The Cabin and Parlor: or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Stereotyped by George Charles. Printed by King & Baird, c1852), np., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Le Hottentot [graphic].
Portrait image of Klaas, a young Hottentot (i.e., Khoikhoi), who accompanied Le Vaillant during parts of his voyage. According to the text, the engraving was done after a sketch by Vaillant. Klass is dressed in the typical Khoikhoi fashion: he wears a fur loin-cloth, a cape made from sheep or badger's skin (with the woolly side inward), and a lamb-skin cap. It appears that he also wears animal innards around his neck and legs, as was customary among the Khoikhoin. A good description of their dress can be found in John Ogilby's Africa: Being an Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid (London: 1670), p. 590-591., Plate in François Le Vaillant's Voyage de Monsieur Le Vaillant dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique par le Cap de Bonne-Espérance: dans les Années 1780, 81, 82, 83, 84 & 85 (A Paris: Chez Leroy, Libraire, rue Saint-Jacques; vis-à-vis celle de la Parcheminerie, no. 15, M.DCC.LXXXX [1790]), vol. 1, p. 212., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Hottentote [graphic].
Image of a young Hottentot (i.e., Khoikhoi) woman whom Le Vaillant met during his travels. The woman wears typical Khoikhoi dress: namely, a cape made from sheep or badger's skin. She does not, however, wear the customary fur loin-cloth -- an oversight allowing the illustrator to show her genitalia. Like many Khoikhoi women (including Saarti Baartman, the so-called "Hottentot Venus," who was crudely "exhibited" to European audiences in the early nineteenth century), the woman shown here has a "vagina dentata," which Le Vaillant described as a "natural apron." (See the English translation of Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa [London: Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster-Row, 1796], vol. 2, p. 353), Plate in François Le Vaillant's Voyage de Monsieur Le Vaillant dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique par le Cap de Bonne-Espérance: dans les Années 1780, 81, 82, 83, 84 & 85 (A Paris: Chez Leroy, Libraire, rue Saint-Jacques; vis-à-vis celle de la Parcheminerie, no. 15, M.DCC.LXXXX [1790]), vol. 2, p. 346., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
The Hottentots butcher ; The Hottentot mat-maker, potter & c. [graphic].
Engravings accompany Chapter XIX, "Of certain Handy-Crafts the Hottentots exercise among themselves." In the foreground of the top image, two pairs of Hottentot [i.e. Khoikhoin] men work separately to butcher two oxen. In the left background, two other men butcher a sheep. A fourth pair boils water in cauldrons; and two others (right) hold the entrails of another animal. The bottom image shows several Hottentot mat-makers and a potter, all of whom appear to be women. (As Kolb wrote, the mat-makers "are, for the most Part, women: And they are very expert in their Business." [p. 236]) In the engraving, the mat-makers are involved in various stages of production: one background figure cuts the reeds out of which the mats will be woven; another woman carries the reeds, and yet another (slightly left of center) lays them on the ground to dry. The woman sitting on the partially finished mat is most likely weaving. In the foreground, a mat-maker strips reeds, while a potter makes a bowl. Several small pots are shown on the ground., Page from Peter Kolb's The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope (London: Printed for W. Innys and R. Manby, at the west end of St. Paul's, MDCCXXXVIII [1738]), vol. 1, p. 226., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
["Household-stuff"; Negroland] [graphic].
The engraving offers a partial view of the interior and exterior of a house in Negroland. It accompanies the following paragraph in Ogilby's text: "The best of their Household-stuff is commonly one or two wooden Chests, bought of the Whites, wherein they Lock all they possess; so that little can be seen in their Houses. They have some Kalabasses, which they call Akosso, made of the Straw of Mille, wherein they commonly carry their Wares and other Goods to sell. Their Arms, such as Shields, Assagays, or Launces, hang on the Wall for Ornament. The remaining part of their Goods consists in a Mat to sleep on, two or three stumps of wood for Stools, a Pot or two to boyl in, two or three Kalabasses to drink Palm-Wine out of, and a great Kettle to wash themselves in." (p. 454) Many of the objects to which Ogibly refers can be seen in the engraving. For example, at the far left, an African washes himself in a "great Kettle," while the man at the far right raises a kalabasse in his hand. In the center of the scene, the standing figure holds his sleeping mat, and several straw baskets (Akosso) are scattered on the ground. In accordance with Ogilby's description, arms, shields, and the like decorate the walls of the house., Illustration in John Ogilby's Africa: Being an Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid: the Land of Negroes, Guinee, and Aethiopia, and Abyssines, with all the Adjacent Islands, either in the Mediterranean, Atlantick, Southern, or Oriental Sea, Belonging Thereunto (London: Printed by Tho. Johnson, for the author, and are to be had at his house in White Fryers, M.DC.LXX [1670]), p. 454., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
How can it be done? [graphic].
Image depicts a mob of slaveholders who are raiding an abolitionist press. Members of the mob are dragging off a broken printing press., Illustration in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. II, no. IX (September, 1836), whole no. 21, p. 1., Curator's note: This is one of several antislavery graphics depicting the proslavery assault on the antislavery movement and their demand for the suppression of antislavery literature. This and several other illustrations link antislavery agitation to first amendment freedoms., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
How slavery honors our country's flag [graphic].
Image shows a procession of enchained slaves marching in double file. The procession is led by two fiddlers, and toward the middle of the line, a slave waves an American flag. An overseer on horseback follows alongside the procession, cracking his whip., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. I, no. 2 (February, 1835), p. 13., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
[How the gold is taken up in the river; Negroland] [graphic].
The engraving shows residents of Negroland diving for gold, it accompanies the following passage in Ogilby's text: "In some places, especially at the plentiful Gold-River Atzine, under the Cliffs and Water-falls, shooting down from the Mountains, Gold is taken up, in this manner: They Dive with a hollow Woodden Tray to the bottom, and rake there among the Earth, Stones, and all that they can come at; with which having filled their Dishes, they come up above Water, and washing the Mass, find the Gold; for sometimes whole pieces are wash't down by force of the Water, through the Gold-Veins; whereof the King of Egwira hath a great many, which he keeps for his Fancy, ascribing a secret Power and Vertue to it." (p. 448), Illustration in John Ogilby's Africa: Being an Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid: the Land of Negroes, Guinee, and Aethiopia, and Abyssines, with all the Adjacent Islands, either in the Mediterranean, Atlantick, Southern, or Oriental Sea, Belonging Thereunto (London: Printed by Tho. Johnson, for the author, and are to be had at his house in White Fryers, M.DC.LXX [1670]), p. 449., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Huissier conduisant un prévenu. [graphic] / Dessine d'après nature par Mr. Douville et lithé par Daussi ; Lith. de Engelmann.
According to the caption, the lithograph shows the manner in which subjects were brought to court in the country governed by the Demboa. (Today, Demboa is part of the state of Borno in northeast Nigeria.) The man being led to court wears a forked branch around his neck. The forked end is secured by a rod; the bailiff holds the other end. (The branch is like those commonly used in the African slave-trade, and frequently featured in depictions thereof.) Additionally, the man's hands are held together by a frame-like, rectangular, wooden (?) restraint. While he wears only a plain white loin-cloth, the bailiff is clothed in colorful, patterned fabrics., Plate 13 in Jean-Baptiste Douville's Voyage au Congo et dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique equinoxiale: fait dans les années 1828, 1829 et 1830 (A Paris: Chez Jules Renouard, libraire, rue de Tournon, n. 6; Imprimé chez Paul Renouard, rue Garencière, n. 5, 1832)., Caption underneath the image reads: "Maniere de citer un sujet à comparaître devant le souverain, dans le pays gouvernés par les Demboa.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
The humanity of the Africo-Americans [graphic].
The setting is St. Domingo. A slave brings a basket of provisions to his owners, Monsieur and Madame Baillon, and appraises them of an imminent revolt by other slaves. The loyal slave aids the couple, their daughter and son-in-law, and their two white servants in making an escape., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. II, no. III (March, 1836), whole no. 15, p. 1., Curator's note: Notice here the use of the term "Africo-Americans," used infrequently but persistently by some African Americans and abolitionists from at least the early 1830s through the Civil War period. Common usage of "blacks" and "Africans" was supplanted in the 1820s with "Negro" common among whites, and "Colored" among most African Americans. As in all the terms used to described black Americans over time, there is a nationalist-assimilationist dichotomy here, with "Africo-Americans" suggesting a separate nationality and culture, and "Colored" suggesting darker-hued members of the common American nation and culture., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.

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