Engraving accompanies a fictional episode described in Letter XI, "The Marriage." Leaning over the staircase balustrade in the upper left, the story's narrator observes the scene taking place below, as does Cleopatra, an elderly slave, who watches from several steps down. In the center of the scene, mistress Rosalie forces the slaves Mima and Juniper to jump over a broomstick that stretches between two chairs. This is part of the forced marriage ceremony over which Rosalie presides. When the weeping Mima hesitates to jump, Rosalies boxes her ears with her slipper. In the background, another house-slave watches from behind a door., Plate in Emily C. Pearson's Cousin Franck's Household, or, Scenes in the Old Dominion (Boston: Upham, Ford, and Olmstead, 1853), p 168., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator
Hayes, George H., engraver
Date
[1853]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1853 Pear 73222.O p 168, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2793
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
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
