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Title: Captain in his war dress
Description: Arriving in Coomassie, Bowdich and his party encountered an enormous crowd -- "upwards of 5000 people," most of whom were warriors. Amidst smoke, martial music, and a "confusion of flags," the military captains performed a dance. "The dress of the captains," Bowdich explained, "was a war cap, with gilded ram horns projecting in front, the sides extended beyond all proportion by immense plumes of eagles feathers, and fastened under the chin with bands of cowries. Their vest was of red cloth, covered with fetishes and saphies (scraps of Moorish writing, as charms against evil) in gold and silver; and embroidered cases of almost every colour, which flapped against their bodies as they moved, intermixed with small brass bells, the horns and tails of animals, shells, and knives; long leopards tails hung down their backs, over a small bow covered with fetishes. They wore loose cotton trowsers, with immense boots of a dull red leather, coming half way up the thigh, and fastened by small chains to their cartouch or waist belt; these were also ornamented with bells, horses tails, strings of amulets, and innumerable shreds of leather; a small quiver of poisoned arrows hung from their right wrist, and they held a long iron chain between their teeth, with a scrap of Moorish writing affixed to the end of it. A small spear was in their left hands, covered with red cloth and silk tassels; their black countenances heightened the effect of this attire, and completed a figure scarcely human." (p. 32), 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. 32., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Date: Dec. 2, 1818
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare *U Afri Bowd 12983.Q p 32, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2893

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: A rebel Negro armed & on his guard
Description: Engraving was done after one of John Gabriel Stedman's own drawings. According to Stedman's account, the image depicts a rebel Surinamese negro. As he wrote, "This rebel negro is armed with a firelock and a hatchet; his hair, though woolly, may be observed to be plaited close to his head, by way of distinction from the rangers, or any other straggling negroes, who are not yet accepted amongst them; his beard is grown to a point, like that of all Africans, when they have no opportunity of shaving. The principal dress of this man consists of a cotton sheet, negligently tied across his shoulders, which protects him from the weather, and serves him also to rest on; while he always sleeps under cover in the most obscure places he can find, when detached from his companions. The rest of his dress is a camisa, tied around his loins like a handkerchief; his pouch, which is made of some animal's skin; a few cotton strings for ornament around his ancles [sic] and wrists; and a superstitious obia or amulet tied about his neck, in which he places all his confidence. The skull and ribs are supposed to be the bones of his enemies, scattered upon the sandy savannah." (vol. 2, p. 88-89), Plate 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. 2, p. 88., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Creator: Bartolozzi, Francesco, 1727-1815, engraver
Date: Dec. 1, 1794
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1796 Sted 755.Q v 2 p 88, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2699

Title: Female quadroon [sic] slave of Surinam
Description: Engraving was done after one of John Gabriel Stedman's own drawings, which record his impressions of Surinam. It offers a detailed frontal view of female slave from Surinam, who, being a quaderoon, belonged to a "class . . .much respected for their affinity to Europeans." (A quaderoon, as Stedman explained, is "the offspring of a white and a mulatto;" and there were many in Surinam.) The plate is accompanied by a lengthy passage, which reads as follows: "To give the reader a more lively idea of these people, I shall describe the figure and dress of a Quaderoon girl, as they usually appear in this colony. They are mostly tall, straight, and gracefully formed; rather more slender than the Mulattoes, and never go naked above the waist, like the former. Their dress commonly consists of a sattin petticoat, covered with flowered gauze; a close short jacket, made of best India chintz or silk, laced before and shewing about an hand-breadth of a fine muslin shirt between the jacket and the petticoat. As for stockings and shoes, the slaves in this country never wear them. Their heads are adorned with a fine bunch of black hair in short natural ringlets; they wear a black or white beaver hat, with a feather, or a gold loop and button: their neck, arms, and ancles are ornamented with chains, bracelets, gold medals, and beads. All these fine women have European husbands, to the no small mortification of the fair Creolians; yet should it be known that an European female had an intercourse with a slave of any denomination, she is for ever detested, and the slave loses his life without mercy." (vol. 1, p. 297), Plate XXXII 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. 296., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: Perry, engraver
Date: [between 1791 and 1796]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1796 Sted 755.Q v 1 p 296, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2696

Title: A Surinam planter in his morning dress
Description: Engraving was done after one of John Gabriel Stedman's own drawings, which record his impressions of Surinam. It offers a detailed frontal view of a Surniman planter, who stands in the extreme foregroud of the image; the planter's turned head also provides a profile view of his face. Behind him and to the right, a female slave, wearing only a skirt and a headress, pours him a glass of wine. Stedman described the scene as follows: "His worship now saunters out in his morning dress, which consists of a pair of the finest Holland trowsers, white silk stockings, and red or yellow Morocco slippers; the neck of his shirt open, and nothing over it, a loose flowing night-gown of the finest India chintz excepted. On his head is a cotton night-cap, as thin as a cobweb, and over that an enormous beaver hat, that protects his meagre visage from the sun, which is already the color of mahogany, while his whole carcase seldom weighs above eight or ten stone, being generally exhausted by the climate and dissipation. To give a more complete idea of this fine gentleman, I in the annexed plate present him to the reader with a pipe in his mouth, which almost everywhere accompanies him, and receiving a glass of Madeira wine and water, from a female quaderoon slave, to refresh him during his walk." (vol. 2, p. 56), Plate XLIX 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. II, facing p. 56., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: Blake, William, 1757-1827, engraver
Date: Dec. 2, 1793
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1796 Sted 755.Q v 2 p 56, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2698

Title: A mulatto woman of the Gold Coast
Description: Portrait of a mulatto woman walking with a parasol on the coast. Hutton's general description of "superior black women and mulattoes" on the Gold Coast also applies to this subject. As he wrote, "They wear a cloth either of silk or cotton, which they fasten round their waist with a handkerchief, from which is suspended a large bunch of silver keys, about thirty-two in number. Under their cloth they wear a girdle that goest several times round their loins, and forms into a large pad behind, just at the small of their backs, which is called a cankey, and on which they carry their children. This cankey, which has a very unseemly appearance, possesses the advantage of keeping the cloth loose, and thus prevents their shape from being exposed. The young girls in general are proud of showing their bosoms, but the mulatto women conceal theirs by wearing a linen shirt." (p. 93-94), Plate in William Hutton's A Voyage to Africa: Including a Narrative of an Embassy to One of the Interior Kingdoms, in the year 1820 . . . (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row, 1821), p. 92., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Creator: Clark, J., 1789-1830, engraver
Date: 1821
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Hutton 5536.O p 92, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2915

Title: Le Hottentot
Description: 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.
Date: [1790]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Leva 1790 9861.O v 1 p 212, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2923

Title: Black and white beaux
Description: Portrays a black couple in New York; it appears within the context of Trollope's discussion of free blacks in the city, particularly their dress, taste, and comportment. "On one occassion," Trollope wrote, "we met in Broadway a young Negress in the extreme of fashion, and accompanied by a black beau, whose toilet was equally studied; eye-glass, guard-chin, nothing was omitted; he walked beside his sable goddess uncovered, and with an air of the most tender devotion. At the window of a handsome house which they were passing stood a very pretty white girl, with two gentlemen beside her; but alas! both of them had their hats on, and one was smoking!" (p. 279), Plate in Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Printed for Whittaker, Treacher, & Co.; New York: Reprinted for the booksellers, 1832), p. 278., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Daily Life.
Creator: Pendleton, lithographer
Date: [1832]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1832 Tro 8678.O p 278, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2732

Title: Hottentote
Description: 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.
Date: [1790]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare U Afri Leva 1790 9861.O v 2 p 346, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2924

Title: Dracht en wapening der Hottentots = The Hottentots clothing and their dress
Description: Set in a lush landscape near the Cape of Good Hope, the illustration features a group of Khoikoin, also known (pejoratively) as the Hottentots. Engraving accompanies a passage in which Ogilby offers a detailed description of their clothing and weapons. "Their Clothing is very sordid, and vile, most of the Men wearing onely a Sheeps Pelt, or Badgers Skin, in manner of a Mantle about their Shoulders, with the hairy side commonly within, and ty'd under their Chin. Such a Mantle consists of three Pieces, neatly sew'd together with Sinews of Beasts in stead of Threed. When they go abroad, or upon a Journey, they throw another Sheeps-skin, with the Wool on the out-side, over the undermost. Upon their Heads they wear a Cap of Lamb-skin, with the Woolly side inward, and a Button on the top. Their shoes are made of a Rhincerot's Skin, and consists of a whole flat Piece, before and behind of a like heighth, with a Cross of two Leather-bands fasten'd to their Feet. Before their Privacies hangs a little piece of a wild Wood-Cat, or ring-streaked Tyger, or Jack-alls Skin, ty'd behind with two Thongs. The Habit of the Women differs little from the former, being a Sheep-skin Mantle on the upper part of their Bodies, with the Wool inwards; but somewhat longer than the Men; also another Skin hanging behind to cover their back-parts, and a square Piece before their Privacies. On their Heads they wear a high Cap of a Sheeps, or Badgers Skin, bound to their Heads with a broad Fillet: In all the rest following the Mens Garb. . . . Many of them wear as an Ornament, the Guts of Beasts, fresh and stinking, drawn two or three times one through another, about their Necks, and the like about their Legs . . . . When they go abroad they have usually an Ostrich Feather, or a Staff, with a wild Cats Tail ty'd to it, in one Hand, in stead of a Handkerchief to wipe their Eyes and Noses, and beat away the Dust, Sand, and Flies, and in the other Hand a sleight Javelin. The Women never go abroad without a Leather Sack at their backs, having at each end a Tuft or Taffel, fill'd with one trifle or another. Their Weapons, or Arms, are Bowes and Arrows, and small Darts, three, four, or five Foot long, having at one end a broad sharp Iron fixed, which they handle and throw very dexterously." (p. 590-91), Double-page plate 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. 590., A seemingly identical copy of this engraving appeared in Pieter van der Aa's La Galerie agreable du monde (Leyden: 1729?). The Leyden version was signed by van der Aa., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Date: [1670]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare *Wing O163 14.F p 590, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2962

Title: Solomon Northup in his plantation suit
Description: Portrait of Solomon Northup, a free citizen of New York, who was kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and sold into slavery. Northup is shown in a suit that he wore as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation., Frontispiece for Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River, in Louisiana (Auburn: Derby and Miller; Buffalo: Derby, Orton and Mulligan; London: Sampson Low, Son & Company, 1853)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Date: [1853]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1853 Nor 54079.D frontispiece, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2791

Title: Dracht en wapening der Hottentots = Les armes et habits des Hottentots, aupres le Cap de Bonne Esperance
Description: Set in a lush landscape near the Cape of Good Hope, the illustration features a group of Khoikoin, also known (somewhat pejoratively) as the Hottentots. As the title suggests, the engraving shows their weapons and manner of dress. Both the men and the women wear loin-cloths and shawls bordered with fur. A few wear bands around their lower legs. Some of the Khoikoin carry spears; the central figure is also shown with a bow and a quiver., Double-page plate in Pieter van der Aa's La galerie agreable du monde, où l'on voit et un grand nombre de cartes tres-exactes et de belles tailles-douces, les principaux empires, roiaumes, republiques, provinces, villes, bourgs et forteresses . . . (Le tout mis en ordre & executé à Leide, par Pierre vander Aa [1729?]), n.p., In the absence of pagination, 57 has been written next to the plate., Seemingly, van der Aa copied from an unsigned engraving published in John Ogilby's Africa: Being an Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billedulgerid (London: 1670) under the title "Dracht en Wapening der Hottentots / The Hottentots Clothing and Their Arms.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Africa: Images, Maps, and Geography.
Date: [1729?]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare *U Gen Gal v 60-62 1729.F n.p. (57), https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2951

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