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Title: West India luxury!!
Description: Satiric print mocking the decadent state of West Indian plantation society containing five vignettes, one with text, depicting slothful white enslavers being lavishly catered to by Black and multiracial enslaved people. Vignettes include: "A West India Nabob" (i.e., man of wealth) as he lounges on his couch, attired in a wide brimmed hat, surrounded by his entourage of enslaved women; enslaved men being used as a "Portable Boot Jack" by their white man enslaver; the white women enslaver showing "Creolean Patience" as she waits for her enslaved marketing person to be told by her enslaved attendant to pick up her nearby fallen needle; the white women enslaver telling "Quashebah come and take my Head in again" from her open window; and a white man enslaver enjoying "One of the Luxuries" of slavery as enslaved women simultaneously comb his hair, wash his feet, fan him, and serve him goblets of wine., Title from item., Described in David Kunzle's The Early comic strip: Narrative strips and picture stories in the European broad sheet from c. 1450 to 1825 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), p. 374-5., Lib. Company. Annual Report, 2000, p. 37-38., Purchase 2000., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: April 1808
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Political cartoons - 1808-Wes [9455.F]

Title: [Unidentified West Indian harbor at sunset with dog]
Description: View depicting the harbor with a pier and dwellings in the background. A dog sits on a paved walkway near a brick embankment in the foreground. Sailing vessels and three men are visible in the water., Title from LCP exhibition catalogue: Pierre Eugene Du Simitière. His American Museum 200 Years After, #1:2., Date inferred from the content., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Du Simitière, a Swiss-born historian, antiquarian, and artist, traveled and documented North America and the West Indies from the 1750s to the 1770s. He settled in Philadelphia in 1774, and in 1782 opened the American Museum, which contained his collected antiquities.
Creator: Du Simitière, Pierre Eugène, approximately 1736-1784, artist
Date: 1763
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *Du Simitière Collection [961.F.27]

Title: David Lewis Papers, 1793-1839 (inclusive)
Description: The David Lewis Papers span Lewis's career, and document some of his activities with his firm Wharton & Lewis, with the Phoenix Insurance Company of Philadelphia, and as a merchant., On deposit at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. For service, please contact the Historical Society at 215-732-6200 or http://www.hsp.org., David Lewis (1766-1840) was a Philadelphia merchant in business with Isaac Wharton (1745-1808) for twenty years. Wharton and Lewis were two of the founders of the Phoenix Insurance Company of Philadelphia, which was organized in 1803. Wharton was elected the company's first president and Lewis its vice president, offices they held until Wharton resigned in November 1805. At that point, Lewis became president, and retained the position until his death in 1840.
Creator: Lewis, David, 1766-1840
Date: 1793
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | MSS McA MSS 015, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A64985#page/1/mode/1up

Title: West Indies Agreeable to the most approv'd maps and charts
Description: Map showing the West Indies including the Bahama Isles, Carribe Isles, Great Antilles, and Little Antilles as colonies of the European nations of England, France, Spain, Denmark, and the Netherlands., Relief shown by landform drawings., Depth shown by soundings., Shows the Tropic of Cancer., Cartouche depicts a bare-chested, bare-footed, Black enslaved man, attired in knee-length pants, moving crates near a white planter and trader engaging in business by the shore. A tall ship sails in the distance., Also shows Cape of Florida and part of South America., Prime Meridians: London and Ferro., Variant published in editions of George Henry Millar's The new and universal system of geography...(London: Alex. Hogg, 1782, 1783, and 1785?)., Acquired before 1950., RVCDC, Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Kitchin, a premier English cartographer, was known for his detailed title cartouches.
Creator: Kitchin, Thomas, 1718-1784, engraver
Date: [178-]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *maps [319 M 1]

Title: Nigritae exhaustis venis metallicis conficiendo saccharo operam dare debent
Description: This woodcut is one of the earliest known illustrations of sugar making in the New World. In the right foreground, two slaves gather and strip stalks of sugar cane. Kneeling on the ground in the center of the scene, another slave feeds the stalks into a sugar mill. In the lower left-hand corner, the sugar juice extracted from the stalks is boiled in a large cauldron; the unrefined sugar is placed in the pots next to it. In the background, numerous slaves are show at work: some cut cane in the fields, some carry it in bundles, others transport pots of unrefined sugar., Plate I Girolamo Benzoni's Americae pars quinta nobilis & admiratione plena Hieronymi Bezoni Mediolanensis, secundae sectionis h[istor]ia[e] Hispanorum: tum in Indos crudelitatem, Gallorumq[ue] pirataru[m] de Hispanis toties reportata spolia: . . . (Francofurti ad Moenum: Theodoro de Bry. Leod. cive Franc, 1595), part V of DeBry's Voyages., DeBry's illustration is based on the following passage in Benzoni's text from the translation of his work by W.H. Smith: "When the natives of this island (Espanola) began to be extirpated, the Spaniards provided themselves with blacks (Mori) from Guinea . . . and they have brought great numbers thence. When there were mines, they made them work at the gold and silver; but since those came to an end they have increased the sugar-works, and in these and in tending the flocks they are chiefly occupied, besides serving their masters in all else." (History of the New World by Girolamo Benzoni, of Milan. Shewing his travels in America, from A.D. 1541 to 1556 . . . Now first translated, and edited by Rear-Admiral W.H. Smyth (London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1857) p. 93., Illustrations in part V of Benzoni's Voyages were engraved by Theodor DeBry after drawings by Joannes Stradanus., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Work Scenes.
Creator: Bry, Theodor de, 1528-1598, engraver
Date: [1595]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare *Am 1590 Har (b.w) Log 1076.F plate I, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2658

Title: La figure des moulins a sucre
Description: 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.
Date: [1681]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1681 Roche 214.Q p 332, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2661

Title: [Plate from Nicolas Ponce's Receuil du vues des lieux principaux de la colonie francaise de Saint-Domingue]
Description: Illustration after the romanticized paintings and drawings of artist Agostino Brunias (ca. 1730-1796) when he worked in the British West Indian colonies, particularly Dominica. Brunias’s work was often copied and the West Indian island or community depicted identified inaccurately. Moving clockwise from the top left, "Place et Fontaine Montarcher" shows a fountain and a city square idenitifed as in Cap-Francois (now Cap Haitien) in Saint-Domingue (Haiti). "Fontaine D'Estaing" shows a fountain in a city's port. Set on a street, "Costumes des Affranchies et des Esclaves des Colonies," shows differences in dress between free residents and enslaved peoples. In this scene, an enslaved woman offers food on a platter to two "Affranchies." The plaid cloth from which the enslaved women's shawl and head-dress are fashioned contrasts with the finery worn by the other two. Again, the fourth engraving,"Costumes des Affranchies et des Esclaves des Colonies" highlights differences in dress, this time in a landscape setting., Title supplied by cataloger., Illustration in Nicolas Ponce's Receuil du vues des lieux principaux de la colonie francaise de Saint-Domingue (A Paris: Chez Moreau de Saint-Mery, en son domicile, rue Caumartin, no. 31. [Chez] Ponce, rue Saint-Hyacinthe, no. 19. [Chez] Phelipeau, rue Saint-Jacques, près celle des Mathurins, no. 45., 1795), plate number 25, n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: Ponce, Nicolas, 1746-1831, engraver
Date: [1795]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Am 1795 Ponce 6368.F no 25, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2690

Title: [Plate from Nicolas Ponce's Receuil du vues des lieux principaux de la colonie francaise de Saint-Domingue]
Description: Illustration after the romanticized paintings and drawings of artist Agostino Brunias (ca. 1730-1796) when he worked in the British West Indian colonies, particularly Dominica. Brunias’s work was often copied and the West Indian island or community depicted identified inaccurately. Image consists of four separate roundels. Moving clockwise from the top left, "Blanchisseuses," shows three women at the edge of a river. To the left, on the bank of the river, a woman dressed only in a long skirt and a head-dress carries a child on her back while balancing a tray (and some type of load) on her head. In the center of the image, a lighter-skinned woman, draped only in a cloth, stands ankle-deep in the river. It appears as if she holds a mirror in her hand. Next to her, a third woman sits on a rock in the water. "Affrainchis des Colonies" shows three free residents (two women and a man) in fashions influenced by European styles. "Négres Jouant au Baton" is an outdoor sporting scene that features two men engaged in a baton fight; a large group of male spectators is assembled around them. "Danse de Négres" shows a group of men and women dancing and clapping to the music of a drum and a tamborine., Title supplied by cataloger., Illustration in Nicolas Ponce's Receuil du vues des lieux principaux de la colonie francaise de Saint-Domingue (A Paris: Chez Moreau de Saint-Mery, en son domicile, rue Caumartin, no. 31. [Chez] Ponce, rue Saint-Hyacinthe, no. 19. [Chez] Phelipeau, rue Saint-Jacques, près celle des Mathurins, no. 45., 1795), plate number 26, n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: Ponce, Nicolas, 1746-1831, engraver
Date: [1795]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Am 1795 Ponce 6368.F no 26, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2691

Title: Watson & Paul Business Records, 1792-1807
Description: The Watson & Paul Business Records contains correspondence and financial documents relating to the firm's trade arrangements with a variety of local and national vendors and merchants, as well as those in Europe and the West and East Indies. The material describes business agreements, details of the goods and specifics of their transportation and value, and occasional news of the growing and harvesting conditions, states of the market, local politics, and weather., On deposit at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107. For service, please contact the Historical Society at 215-732-6200 or http://www.hsp.org., Watson & Paul was a Philadelphia firm formed by two merchants and brothers-in-law, James Paul (1770-1839) and John Watson (died 1811). They were in business from 1797 to 1811.
Creator: Watson & Paul
Date: 1792
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | MSS McA MSS 004, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A64760#page/1/mode/1up

Title: An accurate map of the West Indies with the adjacent coast of America
Description: Detailed map of the West Indies and depicting part of Florida, Central America, and South America, including the names of the islands, capes, bays, rivers, lakes, and keys of the region. From 1794 to 1815 Britain and France fought for dominion of the West Indies., Title from item., Manuscript note on verso: Winter Botham's America; William Priestman Philadelphia 266 Arch St. 1944., Relief shown by hachures and landform drawings., Depth shown by soundings., Prime Meridian: London., Published in William Winterbotham's An Historical, geographical, commercial and philosophical view of the American United States (London:... H.D. Symonds, Paternoster Row, 1795) vol. IV, between pages 228 and 229, and in later editions of the same work., Accessioned 1879., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021.
Creator: Russell, John, active 1733-1795, engraver
Date: Novr. 29, 1794
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *maps-West Indies 1794 [Log 1303.F.6]

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