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- Title
- Branding a female slave
- Description
- Set on the coast of Haiti, the image shows a slave-trader branding a female slave on the shoulder. The unclothed slave kneels on the sand with her hands chained behind her back. Other slaves await their turn, covering their eyes or looking away. In the lower right-hand corner, a second slave-trader sits on a barrel with a rifle resting on his knee. A slave-ship is visible in the background., Plate in John W. Cromwell's The Negro in American History: Men and Women Eminent in the Evolution of the American of African Descent (Washington, D.C.: The American Negro Academy, 1914), p. 2., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
- Date
- [1914]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1914 Cromw 78796.O p 2, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2671
- Title
- The broomstick wedding
- Description
- Illustration is included in Chapter XIV, "I am the Innocent Cause of a Fight -- Religious Services among the Slaves in 'Ole Virginny.'" It shows a "broomstick wedding" that the author recalls having seen. Standing to the left, the betrothed slaves Pompey and Susan hold hands as they wait to jump over the broomstick, which is held by two slaves who are bent at the waist. Uncle Aaron, an elderly slave know as a preacher and a conjuror, presides over the ceremony. According to the author's description, the bride and groom wore the cast-off clothes of their mistress and master: she in a half-worn, ill fitting, maroon-colored merino gown, and he in checked trousers, a white vest and a brown linen duster that was several sizes too big. Numerous wedding guests fill the cabin., Illustration in Mary Ashton Rice Livermore's The Story of my Life, or, The Sunshine and Shadow of Seventy Years (Hartford: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1897), p. 257., Caption underneath the image reads: "'Look squar' at de broomstick! All ready now! one-two-three-jump!'", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Date
- [1897]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1897 Liv 29518.O p 257, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2839
- Title
- A plantation "corn-shucking" -- social meeting of slaves
- Description
- Illustration is included in Chapter XIX, "The Slave-Trader's Purchase -- A Slave Gang Bound for the South -- Distressing Scenes at Parting -- 'We'll Shuck dis Cawn Befo' We Go!'" Image shows a large, festive, night-time corn-shucking in which slaves from several neighboring plantations were said to have participated. Sitting and standing around an enormous pile of husks, the slaves strip the ears of corn and throw them into buckets. According to the text, the slaves sang while they worked, and some tried to outdo each other in husking contests., Illustration in Mary Ashton Rice Livermore's The Story of my Life, or, The Sunshine and Shadow of Seventy Years (Hartford: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1897), p. 336., Caption underneath the image reads: "Costumed in every variety of nondescript gaments, with faces of every shade of black, as diverse in aspect as were their garments in fashion, they seated themselves in groups around the mounds of unhusked corn.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Creator
- Helmick, Howard, designer
- Date
- [1897]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1897 Liv 29518.O p 336, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2840
- Title
- The runaway slaves, Anthony Burns and Thomas Sims
- Description
- Set in Boston, the image shows the consequences of the Fugitive Slave Law in the North. Despite public hostility to slave-hunting, Livermore explained that escaped slaves such as Burns and Sims were "returned at noon-day, military authority being called out to prevent the interference of the people, who were determined on their rescue.", Illustration in Mary Ashton Rice Livermore's The Story of my Life, or, The Sunshine and Shadow of Seventy Years (Hartford: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1897), p. 450., Caption underneath image reads: "With pinioned arms and manacled feet they marched between files of soldiers to a steamer bound for South Carolina from whence they had fled. Vast throngs of men and women watched the procession, many weeping as they gazed.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
- Creator
- Garrett, Edmund Henry, 1853-1929, designer
- Date
- [1897]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1897 Liv 29518.O p 450, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2841
- Title
- The brutal whipping of Matt
- Description
- Illustration is included in Chapter XII, "Negro Matt, the Cooper -- Savage Bryson -- the Negro Overseer - An Agonizing but Unavailing Plea for Mercy -- A Slave-Whipping and a Tragedy." According to Livermore, the print shows the cooper, Matt, being whipped by a "gigantic" man as his master watches at the left. Other slaves look on in horror. Matt offense was accidentally burning his master in the blacksmith's shop. For this, Livermore explained, a "rope was roughly tied around his wrists, and thrown over a beam projecting from the roof of the shop, by which he was drawn up with jerks, until his toes barely touched the ground." The overseer, she noted, "stood by urging on the terrible flagellation, in the most brutal and fiendish manner conceivable." (p. 217), Illustration in Mary Ashton Rice Livermore's The Story of my Life, or, The Sunshine and Shadow of Seventy Years (Hartford: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1897), p. 214., Caption underneath the image reads: "The swish of a long whip flashed through the air. The lash sank with a cutting sound into Matt's quivering flesh. Shrieks of torture pierced the skies as blow after blow fell upon the body of the suffering man. I stood immovable, sick and faint, and heard and saw it all, paralyzed with horror and fear.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Creator
- Helmick, Howard, designer
- Date
- [1897]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1897 Liv 29518.O p 214, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2838
- Title
- "On to Orleans": the Negro Insurrection
- Description
- Image depicts a scene from the 1811 insurrection of slaves in the Louisiana parish of St. John the Baptist, thirty-six miles north of New Orleans. According to Thompson's history, approximately 500 slaves formed a procession, complete with flags and drums, and set out for New Orleans. Along the way, they destroyed plantations and encouraged other slaves to join them. After news spread to Baton Rouge and Fort St. Charles, the marchers were met by a garrison. Many of the them were killed instantly; others were tried and later executed., Illustration in Maurice Thompson's Story of Louisiana (Boston: D. Lothrop Company, c1888), p. 192., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Creator
- Bridgman, L. J. (Lewis Jesse), 1857-1931, engraver
- Date
- [c1888]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1888 Thom 25801.O p 192, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2837
- Title
- Slaves taken from an Arab dhow
- Description
- Set below the deck of an Arab coasting vessel in Zanzibar, the illustration shows a group of scantily dressed, emaciated male slaves. An accompanying quote from Edward Steere contextualizes the image. Steere wrote, "I hope one may never see again such sights as one used to see almost daily when we first landed in Zanzibar -- the miserable remains of the great slave caravans from the interior, brought by sea to Zanzibar, packed so closely that they could scarcely move, and allowed nothing of food on the voyage but a few handfuls of raw rice passed round to be nibbled at. It is said, sometimes, that our efforts to stop the slave traffic have increased the sufferings of the slaves during their transit, but it was simply impossible to increase the misery of this open and unrestrained traffic between Kilwa and Zanzibar. Even as it was, the least delay caused a large proportion of deaths, and the parties of slaves that were led from the custom-house to their owners' houses presented every form of emaciation and disease, till it seemed impossible that they could support themselves, if only for a few minutes longer." (p. 77-78), Plate in Robert Marshall Heanley's A Memoir of Edward Steere, D.D., LL.D.: Third Missionary Bishop in Central Africa (London: George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden, 1888), p. 78., Artist's imprint illegible., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
- Date
- [1888]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Hean 52606.D p 78, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2914
- Title
- [Parting scene; Old Kentucky Home]
- Description
- This parting scene illustrates a verse from Foster's song. Standing on the front porch of the old Kentucky home, a black woman cries into a handkerchief as she watches a black man walking away. He is followed by another man on a horse., Plate in Stephen Collins Foster's My Old Kentucky Home (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 211 Tremont Street, 1888), n.p., The following verse is printed on the opposite page: "The time has come when the darkeys have to part, -- / Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Daily Life.
- Creator
- Kilburn & Cross
- Date
- [1888]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1888 Foster 70524.O n.p., https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2836
- Title
- The fugitive slave law in operation
- Description
- 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.
- Creator
- Bobbett, Albert, ca. 1824-1888 or 9, engraver
- Date
- [c1886]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1886 Poore 24984.O v 1 p 454, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2835
- Title
- Washington and his servant
- Description
- Illustration included in Chapter II, "First Years of the Constitution." It shows President George Washington walking on a cobblestone sidewalk with his black manservant, who follows a few steps behind him. Image appears in the context of a discussion of Washington's taste for fashion and "courtly etiquette," and it relates to the following passage: "When he walked the streets his body-servant in livery followed him at respectful distance." Carrying a walking-stick, the well-dressed Washington wears breeches, a dark vest and waistcoat, and a bicorne, a type of hat commonly worn by intellectuals. His servant carries his dark-colored overcoat. The servant himself wears a lighter suit and a tricorne., Engraving in Charles Coffin's Building the Nation: Events in the History of the United States from the Revolution to the Beginning of the War between the States (New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1883), p. 37., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Date
- [1883]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1883 Cof 23709.O p 37, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2831
- Title
- Must have their baskets full
- Description
- Illustration included in Chapter XXVII, "Compromise of 1850." Set on a plantation, it shows two slaves, a man and a woman, at work in a cotton-field. Woman balances a basket of cotton on her head, while the man carries his on his shoulders. Image relates to the following description of slave life: "From the auction-room they went to the plantation to work in the cotton-fields, beneath the broiling sun, driven by a brutal overseer sitting on a horse, with a whip in his hand, which he delighted to crack over them, or to bring down upon the back of any one that lagged. The weak and feeble must keep up with the strong in wielding the heavy hoe. When the fields were snow-white with the bursting bolls they must perform their allotted tasks in picking; the baskets must be full and running over: the number of pounds specified for a day's work to be tipped by the steel-yards, or in default they would be flogged." (p. 387), Engraving in Charles Coffin's Building the Nation: Events in the History of the United States from the Revolution to the Beginning of the War between the States (New York: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, 1883), p. 388., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
- Date
- [1883]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1883 Cof 23709.O p 388, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2832
- Title
- La traite des noirs
- Description
- Image is set below the decks of a slave-ship during the middle passage. Most of the slaves wear chains and shackles on their wrists. Some try to sleep on the floor; others simply wait. In the center of the scene, a mother holds her infant child. The father buries his face in the mother's hair, and rests his hand on the shoulder of his older daughter., Engraving in Albert Laporte's Récits du vieux marins (Paris: Librairie Théodore Lefèvre et cie 2, rue des Poitevins, 1883?), p. 238., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
- Creator
- Trichon, engraver
- Date
- [1883?]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1883 Lap 7206.Q (Lewis) p 238, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2833
- Title
- Revolte sur un bâtiment négrier
- Description
- Image depicts a revolt aboard a slave-ship. Having broken free of their shackles and chains, the slaves use them to attack the ship's crew. The crew members fight back with daggers and hatchets., Engraving in Albert Laporte's Récits du vieux marins (Paris: Librairie Théodore Lefèvre et cie 2, rue des Poitevins, 1883?), p. 267., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
- Date
- [1883?]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1883 Lap 7206.Q (Lewis) p 267, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2834
- Title
- [Outdoor group]
- Description
- Set on a plantation, this outdoor scene of casual socializing aims to portray everyday slave life. Six slaves and a young white woman are loosely arranged in seated and standing positions, with the white woman occupying a central place in the image. Although one slave (front left) holds a pitchfork and another (front right) is positioned next to a small shovel and an over-turned bucket, the slaves appear to be at rest., Title page vignette in Charles Peterson's The Cabin and Parlor: or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Stereotyped by George Charles. Printed by King & Baird, c1852)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Creator
- Beeler, Charles H., engraver
- Date
- [1878]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 2 Wright 1878a 10231.D title page vignette, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2656
- Title
- The holiday dance
- Description
- 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.
- Creator
- Beeler, Charles H., engraver
- Date
- [1878]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 2 Wright 1878a 10231.D np, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2654
- Title
- Uncle Peter putting the chickens in the window
- Description
- Egraving accompanies a fictional episode described in Chapter XIV, "Isabel's Winter." It features Uncle Peter, a former slave of the late Mr. Courtenay, an extremely kind master, whose family fell into dire poverty after his death. Although Uncle Peter has a new master, his ongoing affection for the members of the Courtenay family, who were struggling to feed themselves during a long winter, led him to secretly deposit two chickens inside their window., Illustration in Charles Peterson's The Cabin and Parlor: or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Stereotyped by George Charles. Printed by King & Baird, c1852), p. 158., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Creator
- Beeler, Charles H., engraver
- Date
- [1878]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 2 Wright 1878a 10231.D p 158, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2655
- Title
- The "West Point," the second locomotive built in the United States for actual service
- Description
- Ilustration shows the "West Point" during its first excursion trip or "trial of speed." The train was conducted by Stephen Lee Alison, who is shown with a African American assistant. Behind them, an African American man rides on the "barrier car," which consists of six bales of cotton strapped down by hoop-irons. (Such cars helped protect passengers from steam and hot water.) The next car is occupied by a "well-known colored band of Charleston" (p. 28), while the final car carries white passengers., Fold-out illustration in William H. Brown's The History of the First Locomotives in America: Together with other Valuable and Interesting Information from Original Documents, and the Testimony of Living Witnesses (Philadelphia: Barclay & Co., Publishers, No. 21 North Seventh Street, c1877), p. 28., Caption below the illustration reads: "The 'West Point' was built at the West Point Foundry Works, in New York City, for the South Carolina Railroad, forwarded to Charleston by ship Lafayette, and after several experimental trials, in February, 1831, made the first excursion trip, as above, on Saturday afternoon, March 5, 1831. (See extract from Charleston Courier.), Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
- Date
- [c1877]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1877 Bro S20245.O p 28, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2830
- Title
- Scene in a Lynchburg tobacco factory
- Description
- Illustration is included in Chapter LXI, "A Visit to Lynchburg in Virginia," and corresponds with the following passage, which clearly aims to present the tobacco factories in a positive, and even romantic light: "It [Lynchburg] has thirty-five tobacco factories, employing great numbers of negroes, men, women, and children. These negroes earn good wages, work faithfully, and turn out vast quantities of the black, ugly compound known as "plug," which has enslaved so many thousands, and promoted such a sublime disregard for the proprieties in the matter of expectoration. . . . In the maufacturies the negro is the same cheery, capricious being that one finds him in the cotton or sugar-cane fields; he sings quaintly over his toil, and seems entirely devoid of the sullen ambition which many of our Northern factory laborers exhibit. The men and women working around the tables in the basements of the Lynchburg tobacco establishments croon eccentric hymns in concert all day long; and their little children, laboring before they are hardly large enough to go alon, join in the refrains." (p. 556) Correspondingly, the engraving shows four small children stripping tobacco leaves alongside the adults., Illustration in Edward King's The Great South (Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1875), p. 557., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
- Date
- [1875]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1875 King 3379.Q p 557, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2828
- Title
- Making salt, at Saltville, Virginia
- Description
- Illustration included in Chapter LXIII, "Among the Mountains -- From Bristol to Lynchburg." It shows two black men working in the salt works in Saltsville, Virginia. In the accompaying text, King wrote the following of the two subjects: "The stout negroes working over the boiling salt were both delighted and amazed when their pictures appeared in the artist's [James Wells Champney's] sketch-book; they had never seen 'no such writin' befo'.'" (p. 571), Illustration in Edward King's The Great South (Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company, 1875), p. 571., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
- Date
- [1875]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1875 King 3379.Q p 571, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2829
- Title
- "The auctioneer's young man"
- Description
- This portrait is included in Chapter X, "A Visit to Houston," where it accompanies the section "Types from Negro-Life." The engraving depicts the auctioneer's "young man," a black man carrying a bell and a flag that reads "AUCTION SALE." Describing him and other Houston "types", King wrote: "The street life is interesting; the negro on his dray, racing good-humoredly with his fellows; the ragged urchin with his saucy face and his bundle of magnolia-blossoms; and the auctioneer's "young man," with his mammoth bell and brazen voice, are all interesting types, which, as the reader will observe, the genial and careful artist has faithfully reproduced." (p. 116), Illustration in Edward King's The great South: a record of journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1875), p. 116., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Daily Life.
- Creator
- King, engraver
- Date
- [1875]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1875 King 3379.Q p 116, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2827
- Title
- Desperate conflict in a barn
- Description
- Engraving depicts an incident that is said to have occurred in a barn in Terrytown, Maryland in 1853. In search of freedom, four Virginia slaves, Robert Jackson, Craven Matterson, and the latter's two brothers escaped and travelled north. In Maryland, they were discovered by a man who saw them hiding in a thicket. According to the accompanying narrative, the man, who "talked like a Quaker," urged them to go to his barn for protection. The man, however, betrayed them, and a group of authorities arrived soon thereafter. A struggle ensued, during the course of which Jackson and Craven were shot, as well as the man who betrayed them., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 50., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Date
- [1872]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 50, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2821
- Title
- A bold stroke for freedom
- Description
- Engraving depicts an incident that is said to have occurred near the Maryland state line on December 25, 1855. As the accompanying narrative suggests, six slaves from Virginia's Loudoun and Fauquier counties (Barnaby Grigby, his wife, Mary Elizabeth Grigby, Frank Wanzer, Emily Foster, and two others) had taken their master's horses and carriage, and were on their way to freedom. Near the Cheat River in Maryland, they were attacked by "six white men and a boy," who demanded their passes, and then ordered their surrender. The fugitives retaliated, and the four travelling in the carriage made a successful escape. Two others on horseback were assumed to have been captured., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 124., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Creator
- Reed, C. H., engraver
- Date
- [1872]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 124, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2823
- Title
- The Christiana tragedy
- Description
- Depicts an incident that is said to have occurred in Christiana in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania in September 1851. A party of slave-hunters, emboldened by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, attempted to capture a number of black men as fugitive slaves. The slave-hunters tried to enter the home of a suspected fugitive, but they were denied access and shots were fired. In response, a group of approximately thirty to fifty blacks congregated to defend themselves and their neighbor. Fierce fighting ensued, and lives were lost., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 350., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Date
- [1872]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 350, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2824
- Title
- Twenty-eight fugitives escaping from the eastern shore of Maryland
- Description
- Engraving depicts a group of twenty-eight fugitive slaves who successfully escaped in 1857., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 102., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Creator
- Osler, Wilbur, engraver
- Date
- [1872]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 102, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2822
- Title
- Living in a cave
- Description
- Engraving shows Harry Grimes, a fugitive slave from North Carolina. During his 1857 escape, Grimes lived in the woods, taking shelter in a cave and a hollowed out poplar tree. Here, he builds a fire with some charcoal that he found., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 425., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Creator
- Bensell, Edmund Birckhead, b. 1842, engraver
- Date
- [1872]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 425, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2825
- Title
- A narrow escape
- Description
- Image depicts an event that occurred in Virginia in 1858. Having learned of his master's plan to sell him, Alfred, the slave shown in the foreground, runs away from a slave trader and a constable named William Noble, both of whom appear in the background., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 453., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Creator
- Foy, engraver
- Date
- [1872]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 453, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2826
- Title
- Religious dancing of the Blacks, termed "shouting"
- Description
- Illustration accompanies Chapter XXXIII, "The Religion of the Blacks, with Anecdotes Illustrating the Same." It is set in a Baptist church, and shows a type of dance called "shouting." According to Stearns, shouting usually took place just before a congregation broke up, when "the spirit [was] upon them." He included a lengthy description of shouting, which reads as follows: "A ring of singers is formed in an open space in the room, and they, without holding on to each others' hands, walk slowly around and around in a circle, the back of the foremost one coming close to the front side of the succeeding brother or sister. They then utter a kind of melodious chant, which gradually increases in strength, and in noise, until it fairly shakes the house, and it can be heard for a long distance. . . . The dancers usually bend their bodies into an angle of about forty-five degrees, and thus bent, march around, accompanying their steps, every second or so, with a quick, jerking motion, or jump, which I can compare to nothing else than the brisk jumping of a frog, . . . The performers also accompany the jerking of their bodies with a corresponding clapping of their hands, and motion of their arms. . . . Occasionally, one of the most zealous of the sisters, throws herself up so as to nearly touch the ceiling over their heads, and then falls down helplessly into the eager arms of some stout brother, who springs forward with alacrity to receive her." (p. 371-72), Plate in Charles Stearns's The Black Man of the South, and the Rebels: or, the Characteristics of the Former, and the Recent Outrages of the Latter (New York: For sale by American News Co., 1872), p. 370., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Daily Life.
- Creator
- Bricher & Conant, engraver
- Date
- [1872]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Stearns 19952.D p 370, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2820
- Title
- Slave barracoons -- burial-ground
- Description
- Illustration depicts an episode that Du Chaillu witnessed during his stay in Cape Lopez (in the modern country of Gabon). As he wrote, "During my stay in the village, as I was one day out shooting birds in a grove not far from my house, I saw a procession of slaves coming from one of the barracoons toward the farther end of my grove. As the came nearer, I saw that two gangs of six slaves each, all chained about the neck, were carrying a burden between them, which I knew presently to be the corpse of another slave. They bore it to the edge of the grove, about three hundred yards from my house, and, throwing it down there on the bare ground, they returned to their prison, accompanied by the overseer, who, with his whip, had marched behind them." (p. 115), Plate in Paul Du Chaillu's Stories of the Gorilla Country: Narrated for Young People (New York: Harper & Brothers, publishers, Franklin Square, 1868), p. 108., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Date
- [1868]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1868 Du Chail 17468.D p 108, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2819
- Title
- Scenes on a cotton plantation
- Description
- According to the accompanying commentary (p. 69), these scenes show the Buena Vista plantation in Clarke County, Alabama. As the text suggests, "The four sketches in the centre [i.e., sowing, ploughing, hoeing, and picking] show the principal operations of the cotton culture; and around figure other scenes appropriate to a cotton plantation." Moving clockwise from the upper right, the outer scenes are titled: the cotton gin, the planter and his overseer, prayer meeting, Saturday evening dance, plantation graveyard, the call to labor, and the cotton press. The text describes these scenes as follows: "The cotton-gin; the picturesque cotton-press, to whose long lever the mules are harnessed to create the power which compresses the ginned staple into bales; the morning call, performed upon a cow-horn; the owner and his overseer, figure here; as well as the weekly distribution of rations; the dance which closes the week's labor, and the plantation burying-ground. Here the defunct negroes are buried, a rail-fence being raised above the graves to keep off marauding hogs, calves, etc.", Double-page illustration in Harper's Weekly, vol. XI, no. 527 (February 2, 1867), p. 72., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Date
- [February 1867]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Per H 1529.F v XI n 527 February 2 1867 p 72, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2879
- Title
- Gang of captives met at Mbame's on their way to Tette
- Description
- 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.
- Creator
- Whymper, Josiah Wood, 1813-1903, engraver
- Date
- [1865]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Livin 16307.O p 356, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2925
- Title
- Females hoeing
- Description
- Engraving accompanies Chapter XXIV of Livingstone's travel narrative. It shows four women working in the Ngabi district: one carries a basket on her head, while three others (including one woman with a child on her back) till the soil with hoes."The only instrument of husbandry here," Livingstone noted, "is the short-handled hoe; and about Tette the labour of tilling the soil, as represented in the woodcut, is performed entirely by female slaves." (p. 499), Illustration 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. 499., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
- Date
- [1865]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Livin 16307.O p 499, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2926
- Title
- [B stands for bloodhound]
- Description
- Image is accompanied by a verse, which begins as follows: "B Stands for Bloodhound. On merciless fangs / The slaveholder feels that his "property" hangs, /." With his arms extended over his head, an escaped slave falls to his knees. Behind him, a bloodhound bites at his shoulders and claws his thigh; two other dogs surround him., Illustration in Abel C. Thomas's Gospel of Slavery (New York: Published by T.W. Strong, 1864), n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Thoma 50969.D vignette B, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2814
- Title
- [F stands for fugitives]
- Description
- Image is accompanied by a verse, which begins as follows: "F Stands for Fugitives hasting from wrath, / And furies are hot on their dangerous path. /." A group of four fugitive slaves, including a mother and child, hide in a thicket, hoping to avoid the bloodhounds who trail them. To the left, in the distant background, an American flag waves., Illustration in Abel C. Thomas's Gospel of Slavery (New York: Published by T.W. Strong, 1864), n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Thoma 50969.D vignette F, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2815
- Title
- [K stands for kidnapper]
- Description
- Image is accompanied by a verse, which begins as follows: "K Stands for Kidnapper. Whoso receives / What others have stolen, is leagu'd with the thieves. /." In this night-time scene, a bearded kidnapper uses one knee to pin a fugitive slave to the ground in a face-down position. With a dagger between his teeth, the kidnapper leans over the slave, and bends his left arm behind his back. Handcuffs lie on the ground next to him., Illustration in Abel C. Thomas's Gospel of Slavery (New York: Published by T.W. Strong, 1864), n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Thoma 50969.D vignette K, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2816
- Title
- Emancipated slaves
- Description
- From left to right, the group portrait shows: Wilson Chinn, a man of about sixty, whose forehead was branded with the initials V.B.M.; Charles Taylor, an eight year-old boy identified in the accompanying text as white; August Broujey, a nine year-old girl whose mother was "almost white;" Mary Johnson, an adult woman; Isaac Watts, a black boy of nine; Rebecca Huger, an eleven year-old, who "to all appearance . . . is perfectly white;" the Reverend Robert Whitehead, an ordained preacher; and Rosina Downs, a "fair child" of "not quite seven years." In addition to the group portrait, cartes de visite of the individual sitters were made. As the accompanying text explains, both could be purchased through the New York-based National Freeman's Relief Association; the proceeds went to support Louisiana schools., Full-page illustration in Harper's Weekly (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1864), vol. 8, no. 370 (January 30, 1864), p. 69., Small caption underneath the image reads: "Emancipated slaves, white and colored. -- The children are from the schools established in New Orleans, by order of Major-General Banes.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [January 1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Per H 1529.F v 8 n 370 Jan 30 1864 p 69, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2878
- Title
- [X stands for cross]
- Description
- Image is accompanied by a verse, which begins as follows: "X Stands for Cross. By the lusts of the flesh / Men open the wounds of the Saviour afresh, /." In the foreground of a wooded landscape, an overseer / slaveowner flogs the back of a male slave whose wrists are shackled and chained to a tree trunk. On a hill in the background, a Christ-figure hangs on a cross., Illustration in Abel C. Thomas's Gospel of Slavery (New York: Published by T.W. Strong, 1864), n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Thoma 50969.D vignette X, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2818
- Title
- [W stands for woman]
- Description
- Image is accompanied by a verse, which begins as follows: "W Stands for Woman. In Slavery-life, / Full many are mothers, but no one is wife./." The presence of an auctioneer in the background suggests that the setting is a slave auction. In the foreground, a slaveowner whips the bare back of a female slave. The woman kneels on the ground; her hands are raised over her head, and her wrists are fastened to a post. To the right, another slaveowner leads away a small child, presumably that of the woman., Illustration in Abel C. Thomas's Gospel of Slavery (New York: Published by T.W. Strong, 1864), n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Thoma 50969.D vignette W, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2817
- Title
- Running away
- Description
- Illustration accompanies part five, "Domestic Amusements in the Slave States." Trailed by a pack of bloodhounds and several mounted authorities armed with rifles, a slave family tries to make their escape. To the right, on the bank of a river, two authorities aim their rifles at a drowning slave, who is approached by a group of white men in a boat., Illustration in the Suppressed Book about Slavery! (New York: Carleton, 1864), p. 336., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
- Creator
- Van Ingen & Snyder, engraver
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Suppr 15191.D p 336, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2813
- Title
- The bloodhound business
- Description
- Illustration accompanies part five, "Domestic Amusements in the Slave States." It shows a family of runaway slaves as they try to defend themselves from a pack of bloodhounds. Behind them, two slavehunters aim their rifes at father, mother, and child., Illustration in the Suppressed Book about Slavery! (New York: Carleton, 1864), p. 288., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
- Creator
- Van Ingen & Snyder, engraver
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Suppr 15191.D p 288, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2812
- Title
- Flogging the Negro
- Description
- 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.
- Creator
- Van Ingen & Snyder, engraver
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Suppr 15191.D p 240, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2811
- Title
- Harvest in Wanyamézi
- Description
- 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.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Speke 15863.O p 129, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2810
- Title
- Turning the tables on the overseer
- Description
- Bitter anti-slavery print depicting a group of slaves about to whip their white overseer, who has been bound to a tree on the plantation grounds. Before the overseer, the male slave holding the whipping lash boldly pulls up his sleeve as the slave next to him takes off his hat in a mock gesture of respect. Smiling men, women, and children of all ages stand, sit, and lean on a fence, surrounding the overseer in anticipation of his whipping., Illustration in New York Illustrated News, November 28, 1863, p. 73., Also published as a loose print by the African American press, Robert and Thomas Hamilton, possibly the first black press to publish separate prints., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Date
- [1863]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Per D 8.5 1571.F Nov 28 1863 p 73, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2863
- Title
- A typical negro
- Description
- Three engravings accompanying the article "A Typical Negro." The text identifies them as "portraits" of Gordon, a fugitive Mississippi slave who joined the Union army in Baton Rouge. According to the unnamed author, the engravings were taken from photographs by McPherson and Oliver. The engraving on the left bears the title "Gordon as he entered our lines." It shows Gordon sitting on a stool with his hands folded on his lap and one leg crossed over the other. His clothing is frayed and tattered, and he wears no shoes. As the author explains, Gordon "entered our lines, with clothes torn and covered with mud and dirt from his long race through the swamps and bayous, chased as he had been for days and nights by his master with several neighbors and a pack of blood-hounds; . . . ." The middle engraving is titled "Gordon under medical inspection." Here, Gordon is seated on a stool with his bare back facing the viewer. The image offers a detailed view of the wounds and scars that cover his back. As the author commented, the engraving "shows him as he underwent the surgical examinations previous to being mustered into the service -- his back furrowed and scarred with the traces of a whipping administered on Christmas day." The portrait on the right is titled "Gordon in his uniform as a U.S. soldier." It shows Gordon in full military uniform, with all of his gear and his musket. This engraving, the author notes, "represents him in United States uniform, bearing the musket and prepared for duty.", Illustration in Harper's Weekly, vol. 7, no. 340 (July 4, 1863), p 429., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Fugitives.
- Date
- [July 1863]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Per H 1529.F v 7 n 340 July 4 1863 p 429, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2877
- Title
- [The rebel pirate's fatal prize]
- Description
- Image depicts a scene on board the schooner S.J. Waring. The ship's steward William Tillman [i.e., Billy Tilghman], "the brave and daring negro," armed with a hatchet, defends himself and his wife from three men identified as the "Pirate Prize Master, Lieutenant, and Mate," who stand in his doorway. Having learned of their secret plot to sell him and his wife into slavery, Tillman murders them., Vignette on the broadside advertisement for The Rebel Pirate's Fatal Prize (Philadelphia: Reichner & Co., 1862)., Accompanied by the caption: "Back sirs! She is my wife, she is no slave! Seize her at your peril.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Date
- [1862]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1862 Und (2) 5786.F 46e broadside vignette, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2809
- Title
- The fugitives
- Description
- 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.
- Creator
- N. Orr & Co., engraver
- Date
- [1861]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1861 Victo 70421.O p 206, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2807
- Title
- The bridal dance
- Description
- Engraving depicts a fictional episode from Chapter IV, "Christmas." The scene takes place on Fairfax Plantation on Christmas day. The newly married couple, Jim and July, dance merrily to the music of fiddles, banjos, and tamborines, while other slaves look on. The pair are still dressed in their wedding attire: July is described as "resplendent in a white dress, white cotton gloves, a string of mock-pearls about her neck, and a wreath of silver flowers about her head," while Jim wears "a gorgeous waistcoat, had a sprig of flowers in the button-hole of his coat, and also sported white cotton gloves." According to the text, a bonfire provided the illumination for these festivities, which grew gayer as evening turned into night., 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. 46., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
- Creator
- N. Orr & Co., engraver
- Date
- [1861]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1861 Victo 70421.O p 46, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2808
- Title
- Fan blacksmiths
- Description
- From 1855-59, Paul B. Du Chaillu (Paul Belloni), a French-American explorer, led an expedition through Gabon, which was supported by the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Scienes. Du Chaillu's observations were published in Explorations & Adventures in Equatorial Africa (1861). This engraving is set in a village inhabited by the Fan peoples, who settled in the area around the Gabon River. It shows two Fan blacksmith working over a small fire. "As blacksmiths," Du Chaillu wrote, "they very far surpass all the tribes of this region who have not come in contact with whites. Their war-like habits have made iron a most necessary article to them; and though their tools are very simple, their patience is great, and, as the reader will perceive from the pictures of their arms, they produce some very neat workmanship." (p. 91) Describing the scene shown in the engraving, Du Chaillu continued, "The forge is set up anywhere where a fire can be built. They have invented a singular bellows, composed of two short, hollowed cylinders of wood, surmounted by skins accurately fitted on, and having an appropriate valve and a wooden handle. The bellows-man sits down, and moves these coverings up and down with great rapidity, and the air is led through small wooden pipes into an iron joint which emerges in the fire. The anvil is a solid piece of iron of the shape seen in the illustration. The sharp end is stuck into the ground, and the blacksmith sits alongside of his anvil and beats iron with a singular hammer, which is simply a piece of iron weighing three to six pounds, and in shape of a truncated cone. It has no handle, but is held by the smaller end, and, of course, the blows require much more strength." (p. 91-92), Illustration in Paul B. Du Chaillu's Explorations & adventures in equatorial Africa: With accounts of the manners and customs of the people, and the chace of the gorilla, crocodile, leopard, elephant, hippopotamus, and other animals (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1861), p. 91., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
- Date
- [1861]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Du Chail 15232.O p 91, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2901
- Title
- The Africans of the slave bark "Wildfire"
- Description
- Engraving shows the manner in which hundreds of African slaves were crowded on the deck of the "Wildfire," an American vessel captured off the northern coast of Cuba in April 1860. According to the accompanying text, the ship had left the Congo River thirty-six days before her capture, and had roughly five hundred Africans on board. The capture of the "Wildfire" was led by Lieutenant Craven of the United States steamer Mohawk. His experience was recounted in Harper's Weekly as follows: "Soon after the bark was anchored we repaired on boad, and on passing over the side saw, on the deck of the vessel, about four hundred and fifty native Africans, in a state of entire nudity, in a sitting or squatting posture, the most of them having their knees elevated so as to from a resting place for their head and arms. They sat very close together, mostly on either side of the vessel, forward and aft, leaving a narrow open space along the line of the centre for the crew of the vessel to pass to and fro. About fifty of them were full-grown young men, and about four hundred were boys aged from ten to sixteen years. It is said by persons acquainted with the slave-trade and who saw them, that they were generally in a very good condition of health and flesh, as compared with other similar cargoes, owing to the fact that they had not been so much crowded together on board as is common in slave voyages, and had been better fed than usual." (p. 344), Illustration in Harper's Weekly, vol. IV, no. 179 (June 2, 1860), p. 344., Caption underneath the image reads: "The slave deck of the bark 'Wildfire,' brought into Key West on April 30, 1860. -- [From a Daguerrotype.]", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
- Date
- [June 1860]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Per H 1529.F v IV n 179 June 2 1860 p 344, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2651
- Title
- Scene in the hold of the "Blood-Stained Gloria." (Middle Passage)
- Description
- As the title suggests, the engraving shows the hold of the Gloria, a Brazilian slave-ship upon which the author travelled. In Chapter XV of his Revelations, Drake described the conditions on board: "our slaves," he wrote, "were crammed in hold, cabin, and peak, and packed like herrings, on the shelves, around our vessel's sides; and what was worse, gratings were kept down half the time." (p. 88-89) Continuing to describe the "horrors of this dreadful passage," he added, "The sick and dying were chained together. I saw pregnant women give birth to babes, whilst chained to corpses, which our drunken overseers had not removed. The blacks were literally jammed between decks, as if in a coffin; and a coffin that dreadful hold became, to nearly one-half of our cargo, before we reached Bahia." (p. 89) In the engraving, Ruiz, the ship's captain, has entered the hold with one of his mates. In addition to a lantern, the captain carries a large sword, while his mate carries a rifle. A cat-o'-ninetails can be seen on the floor., Fold-out plate in Richard Drake's Revelations of a Slave Smuggler: Being the Autobiography of Capt. Rich'd Drake, an African Trader for Fifty-Years from 1807 to 1857; during which Period He Was Concerned in the Transportation of Half a Million Blacks from African Coast to America (New York: Robert M. De Witt, publisher, [c1860]), p. 28., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
- Creator
- Andrew & Filmer, engraver
- Date
- [c1860]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1860 Dra 72735.O p 28, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2806
- Title
- Slave market scene on the Kambia River, coast of Africa
- Description
- In the center of this busy, crowded scene, a European slave-trader examines the teeth of a male slave who is lying flat on the ground. Another European trader straddles the slave while negotiating with three African merchants. To the right, a well-dressed European merchant observes the inspection process. The open book near his elbow is most likely a ledger in which he will record his purchases. To the left of center, a European slave-trader brands a female slave while others wait their turn. With his back turned toward the viewer, an overseer in the left foreground watches the branding of the slaves. A large hatchet hangs from his belt, and he holds a metal instrument commonly used to restrain and punish slaves. In the left background, an African overseer whips a bound slave. A slave-ship at sea appears in the distant background., Fold-out frontispiece for Richard Drake's Revelations of a Slave Smuggler: Being the Autobiography of Capt. Rich'd Drake, an African Trader for Fifty-Years from 1807 to 1857; during which Period He Was Concerned in the Transportation of Half a Million Blacks from African Coast to America (New York: Robert M. De Witt, publisher, [c1860])., Wood engraving after the 1840 painting entitled "The Slave Trade" by Auguste-Francois Biard., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from the Slave Trade.
- Creator
- Andrew & Filmer, engraver
- Date
- [1840, c1860]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1860 Dra 72735.O frontispiece, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2805