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
Set on a plantation, this merry scene portrays a harvest dance. A man and a woman dance bare-foot to the music of a fiddler, who is perched high upon a stool. Others look on. A young man kneels in the foreground, his straw hat and hoe lying on the ground. In the background, two stocky, resolute-looking white women observe the festivities. Both wear kerchiefs, the ties of which, in one case, resemble devil's horns., Plate at the front of Charles Peterson's The Cabin and Parlor: or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Stereotyped by George Charles. Printed by King & Baird, c1852), np., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator
Beeler, Charles H., engraver
Date
[1878]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 2 Wright 1878a 10231.D np, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2654
