This commonplace cut of a slave on the auction block was mass produced for use in southern newspapers to advertise slave sales. It appears in "The Anti-Slavery Record" as a stroke of irony. Opponents of abolition denounced the antislavery movement for its agitational pamphlets and newspapers, and particularly for its use of what opponents termed "incendiary pictures" of southern slavery. The editors note: "The cast from which it was taken was manufactured in this city, for the southern trade, by a firm of stereotypers, who, on account of the same southern trade, refuse to stereotype the Record, because it contained just such pictures! Now, how does it come to pass, that this said picture when printed in southern newspapers is perfectly harmless, but when printed in the Anti-Slavery Records is perfectly incendiary?", Illustration in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. II, no. VII (July, 1836), whole no. 19, p. 12., Small caption underneath the image reads: Who bids?, Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
Date
[July 1836]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per A 245 60026.D v 2 n 7 p 12, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2852
