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Title: Scene in the slave pen at Washington
Description: Engraving portrays an episode described in Northup's narrative. After being kidnapped, Northup was held in Williams' slave pen in Washington City. There, he explained, he was beaten by James H. Burch, a well-known slave-dealer, and Radburn, his lackey. Burch is seen on the left, whipping Northup with a cat-o'-ninetails. ("The cat was a large rope of many strands -- the strands unraveled, and a knot tied at the extremity of each.") Describing the scene in his own words, Northup wrote, "As soon as these formidable whips appeared, I was seized by both of them, and roughly divested of my clothing. My feet, as has been stated, were fastened to the floor. Drawing me over the bench, face downwards, Radburn placed his heavy foot upon the fetters, between my wrists, holding them painfully to the floor. With the paddle, Burch commenced beating me." (p. 44), Illustration in 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 1851, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River, in Louisiana (Auburn and Buffalo [N.Y.]: Miller, Orton & Mulligan; London: Sampson Low, Son & Company, 1854), p. 44., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
Creator: Orr, Nathaniel, engraver
Date: [1854]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1854 North 70438.O p 44, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2799

Title: View of the Capitol of the United States after the conflagration in 1814
Description: Engraving is set in 1815 in Washington, DC, where a group of bound slaves passes in front of the burned-out Capitol building en route to Georgia. Two allegorical figures, one of whom represents Liberty, float on a smoke cloud above the building. The frontispiece relates to Torrey's musings as to whether "the Sovereign Father of all nations" permitted the burning of the Capitol as a "fiery, though salutary signal of his displeasure at the conduct of his Columbian children, in erecting and idolizing this splendid fabric as the temple of freedom, and at the same time oppressing with the yoke of captivity and toilsome bondage, twelve of fifteen hundred of their African brethren (by logical induction), making merchandise of their blood, and dragging their bodies with iron chains, even under its towering walls." Torrey then commented, "Yet it is a fact, that slaves are employed in rebuilding this sanctuary of liberty.", Frontispiece for Jesse Torrey's A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery, in the United States (Philadelphia: Published by the author. John Bioren, printer, 1817)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Images from the Slave Trade.
Creator: Lawson, Alexander, 1773-1846, engraver
Date: 1817
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1817 Tor 4875.O frontispiece, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2722

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