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- Title
- Flagellation of a female Samboe slave
- Description
- Engraving was done after one of John Gabriel Stedman's own drawings; it illustrates an incident that he witnessed during his travels in Surinam. According to Stedman's account, the image shows a beautiful Samboe girl of about eighteen, who was tied by both arms to a tree limb and flagellated by two overseers in such a manner that "she was from her neck to her ancles [sic] literally dyed over with blood." When Stedman reached her, she had already received 200 lashes, and he begged one of the overseers to let her down. At this point, however, the overseer explained that, in order to prevent strangers from interfering with his government, he had made an unalterable rule to double any slave's punishment when a stranger tried to intervene on his or her behalf. The girl thus received another 200 lashes., Plate XXXV 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. 326., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Creator
- Blake, William, 1757-1827, engraver
- Date
- [between 1791 and 1796]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1796 Sted 755.Q v 1 p 326, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2697
- Title
- "Deliver us from evil!"
- Description
- A slaveowner with a whip in his hand towers over three black children in chains and shackles who kneel at his feet., Vignette in Lydia Childs's the Oasis (Boston: Benjamin C. Bacon: Tuttle and Weeks, printers, No. 8, School Street, 1834), p. 20., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Creator
- Hall, John H., engraver
- Date
- [1834]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1834 Chi 70173.D.5 p 20, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2733
- Title
- Southern arguments to stop the mouths of Northern guests
- Description
- According to the caption, this domestic interior shows a Northern man who moved to the South and married into a slave-owning family. Seated at a lavish table, the man and his family enjoy the fruits of slave labor. Through the left-hand window, a slave is being whipped by an overseer. A few other slaves can be seen through the window on the right., Illustration in the American Anti-Slavery Almanac, for 1839 (New York: Published for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1838), p. 23., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [1838]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1838 Ame Ant 16996.D.3 p 23, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2766
- Title
- Persecuted virtue
- Description
- Illustration accompanies a recollection made by George, a fugitive slave, in Chapter XI, "In Which Property Gets into an Improper State of Mind." In conversation with Mr. Wilson, George recalled how his sister was whipped by her owner for no other reason that wanting a decent Christian life. Correspondingly, the image captures the moment leading up to George's sister's whipping. Stripped to the waist, she waits on her knees as shabby looking white man ties her wrists to a post. In the center of the scene, a black overseer stands with a whip in his hand, talking with the master. Chains and shackles hang from the rear wall of the barn interior., Illustration in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (London: John Cassell, Ludgate Hill, 1852), p. 112., Caption underneath the image reads, "She was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no slave girl a right to live." --Page 95., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Date
- [1852]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1852 Sto 72726.O p 112, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2789
- Title
- [Whip and paddle]
- Description
- Set in a barn or work space, the illustrations shows an unclothed male slave who hangs from his wrists. To the right, a white overseer raises his whip. To the left, another white man holds the long handle of a paddle between his teeth. Rolling up his shirt sleeves, he prepares to participate in the beating. Further to the left, another white man violently restrains a slave who lies face down on the floor., Illustration in the American Anti-Slavery Almanac, for 1838 (Boston: Published by D.K. Hitchcock, 1837), p. 23., Caption underneath the image reads: "Sometimes a slave is tied up by the wrists, while the ancles [sic] are fastened to a staple in the floor. In this position, they are punished with the whip or with the paddle. This is an instrument of torture bored full of holes, each hole raising a blister.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [1837]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1837 Ame Ant 52047.D.2 p 23, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2755
- Title
- The cruelties of slavery
- Description
- Holding a whip in his right hand, a slaveowner moves to strike a female slave kneeling beneath him. The slave reaches her arms toward her baby, who dangles by one wrist from the slaveowner's left hand. To the right, another slaveowner looks on as mother and child are separated. In the left background, four bound slaves march off in single file., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. I, no. 5 (May, 1835), p. 49., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [May 1835]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per A 245 16998.D v 1 n 5 cover page, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2856
- Title
- [Frontispiece for the Curious Adventures of Captain Stedman]
- Description
- Image relates to an episode that Captain John Stedman witnessed during his travels in Surinam, and went on to describe in his text, 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). In the corresponding passage, Stedman described how a beautiful Samboe girl of about eighteen was tied by both arms to a tree limb and flagellated by two overseers in such a manner that "she was from her neck to her ancles [sic] literally dyed over with blood." When Stedman arrived on the scene, the girl had already received 200 lashes, and he begged one of the overseers to let her down. At this point, the overseer explained that, in order to prevent strangers from interfering with his government, he had made an unalterable rule to double any slave's punishment when a stranger tried to intervene on his or her behalf. To Stedman's utter dismay, the girl thus received another 200 lashes. Stedman's own 1796 text included an illustration of this terrible episode: an engraving done by William Blake after one of Stedman's drawings. Like Blake's engraving, the 1809 aquatint shows the two black overseers who carried out the girl's punishment, the planter who presumably ordered it, and the slave girl herself. The aquatint, however, differs substantially in style, composition, and interpretation., Folded frontispiece for the Curious Adventures of Captain Stedman, during an expedition to Surinam in 1773 (London: Printed for Thomas Tegg [1809])., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Date
- [1809]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1809 Cur 68448.D frontispiece, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2718
- Title
- Douglass wird von Coven gezüchtigt
- Description
- Engraving accompanies a brief history of Frederick Douglass' early years (c. 1817-1838), and was included in the article, "Bilder aus dem Sklavenleben" (Pictures from Slave Life). Set in a plantation field, the scene shows Douglass on his hands and knees with his shirt hanging around his waist. Standing behind him, a slave-holder named Coven (Douglass' master from approximately 1833-34) beats his bare back with a stick. According to the text, Coven never let a week go by without whipping Douglass and his back never healed., Illustration in Weber's Volks-Kalendar (Leipzig: Verlag von J.J. Weber, [1853]), p. 143., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Date
- [1853]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1853 Web 21101.O p 143, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2796
- Title
- [X stands for cross]
- Description
- Image is accompanied by a verse, which begins as follows: "X Stands for Cross. By the lusts of the flesh / Men open the wounds of the Saviour afresh, /." In the foreground of a wooded landscape, an overseer / slaveowner flogs the back of a male slave whose wrists are shackled and chained to a tree trunk. On a hill in the background, a Christ-figure hangs on a cross., Illustration in Abel C. Thomas's Gospel of Slavery (New York: Published by T.W. Strong, 1864), n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Thoma 50969.D vignette X, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2818
- Title
- [W stands for woman]
- Description
- Image is accompanied by a verse, which begins as follows: "W Stands for Woman. In Slavery-life, / Full many are mothers, but no one is wife./." The presence of an auctioneer in the background suggests that the setting is a slave auction. In the foreground, a slaveowner whips the bare back of a female slave. The woman kneels on the ground; her hands are raised over her head, and her wrists are fastened to a post. To the right, another slaveowner leads away a small child, presumably that of the woman., Illustration in Abel C. Thomas's Gospel of Slavery (New York: Published by T.W. Strong, 1864), n.p., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Thoma 50969.D vignette W, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2817
- Title
- Flogging the Negro
- Description
- According to this account, the engraving shows a court-ordered public flogging that took place in Lexington, Missouri in 1856. The slave's offense was defending his wife (seen on the ground to the left) from an abusive blacksmith. In response, the court ruled that the slave was to receive 1,000 lashes. These were to be administered by three citizens, including the blacksmith, who was allowed to initiate the punishment. Here, the blacksmith flogs the slave with a paddle, while two other men (seen to the left and right) crack their whips. A small black girl prays at the feet of the flogged slave; others look on., Illustration in the Suppressed Book about Slavery! (New York: Carleton, 1864), p. 240., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Imagery.
- Creator
- Van Ingen & Snyder, engraver
- Date
- [1864]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1864 Suppr 15191.D p 240, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2811
- Title
- Flogging of the slave girl Juliana, about five or six years of age, in Jamaica, &c
- Description
- Image shows Juliana, a young West Indian slave girl, being flogged by her mistress, Eleanor Whitehead, with a cat of six tails. Juliana is streched out on the floor, and her mistress, dressed in voluminous skirts and elaborate finery, looms over her threateningly., Illustration in the pamphlet Flogging of the Slave Girl Juliana, about Five or Six Years of Age, in Jamaica &c. (London: Sold at the Depository; and by Harvey & Darton; Houlston and Son; Edmund Fry; E. Albright, London; and other booksellers, 1830?). (Bagster and Thomas, printers)., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [1830?]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1830 Flo 67062.D p 1, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2730
- Title
- The manner in which slaves are placed to be flogged
- Description
- A slaveowner stands to the left and watches as a partially clothed male slave flogs a naked male slave who lies face down on the ground. The arms and legs of the slave being flogged are fastened to pegs in the ground., Illustration in Thomas Branagan's Penitential Tyrant (New York: Printed and sold by Samuel Wood, 1807), p. 272., Engraving attributed to Alexander Anderson., Images in this work derived from oral testimony given before the British Parliament's Select Committee Appointed to Take the Examination of Witnesses Respecting the African Slave Trade originally published as An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered Before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years 1790, and 1791; on the Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade (London: printed by James Phillips, 1791). Images also issued in a number of other printed works including Remarks on Methods of Procuring Slaves with a Short Account Their Treatment in the West-Indies (London: printed by and for Darton and Harvey, no. 66 Gracechurch Street, MDCCXCIII [1793]); Sclaven-Handel (Philadelphia: Gedruckt fur Tobias Hirte, bey Samuel Saur, 1794); Der Neue Hoch Deutsche Americanische Calender auf das Jahr 1797 (Baltimore: Samuel Saur, 1796); Injured Humanity: Being a Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselves Christians... (New York; printed and sold by Samuel Wood, no. 362, Pearl Street, between 1805 and 1808); and The Mirror of Misery, or Tyranny Exposed (New York: printed and sold by Samuel Wood, 1807) and later editions issued in 1811 and 1814., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Creator
- Anderson, Alexander, 1775-1870, engraver
- Date
- [1807]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1807 Bra 2721.D p 272, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2714
- Title
- Another method of fixing the poor victims on a ladder to be flogged, which is also occasionally laid flat on the ground for severer punishment
- Description
- A slaveowner stands to the right and watches as a partially clothed male slave flogs the backside of a naked male slave who leans on a ladder that is propped against a tree., Illustration in Thomas Branagan's Penitential Tyrant (New York: Printed and sold by Samuel Wood, 1807], p. 273., Engraving attributed to Alexander Anderson., Images in this work derived from oral testimony given before the British Parliament's Select Committee Appointed to Take the Examination of Witnesses Respecting the African Slave Trade originally published as An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered Before a Select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years 1790, and 1791; on the Part o the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave-Trade (London: printed by James Phillips, 1791). Images also issued in a number of other printed works including Remarks on the Methods of Procuring Slaves with a Short Account of Their Treatment in the West-Indies (London: printed by and for Darton and Harvey, no. 66 Gracechurch Street, MDCCXCIII [1793]); Sclaven-Handel (Philadelphia: Gedruckt fur Tobias Hirte, bey Samuel Saur, 1794); Der Neue Hoch Deutsche Americanische Calender auf das Jahr 1797 (Baltimore: Samuel Saur, 1796); Injured Humanity: Being a Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselves Christians... (New York: printed and sold by Samuel Wood, no. 362 Pear Street between 1805 and 1808); and The Mirror of Misery, or Tyranny Exposed (New York: printed and sold by Samuel Wood, 1807) and later editions issued in 1811 and 1814., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Creator
- Anderson, Alexander, 1775-1870, engraver
- Date
- [1807]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1807 Bra 2721.D p 273, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2715
- Title
- Whipping with the paddle, as witnessed by the author
- Description
- Image shows the type of event that Watson witnessed regularly while in the custody of a slave-trader named Mr. Denton. As Watson explained, "I was not sold for several weeks, thought I wished to be the first, not wishing to witness his cruelty to his slaves any longer; for if they displeased him in the least, he would order them to be stripped, and tied hand and foot together. He would then have his paddle brought, which was a board about two feet in length and one inch in thickness, having fourteen holes bored through it, about an inch in circumference. This instrument of torture he would apply, until the slave was exhausted, on parts which the purchaser would not be likely to examine." Correspondingly, in this scene, Denton beats a man who is tied to an upright pole in such a manner that he is forced to lie on his side on the ground in a fetal position. A child cries in the background; two potential purchasers approach., Illustration in Henry Watson's Narrative of Henry Watson: a Fugitive Slave (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1850), p. 11., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Date
- [1850]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1850 Wat 71223.O p 11, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2781
- Title
- The brutal whipping of Matt
- Description
- Illustration is included in Chapter XII, "Negro Matt, the Cooper -- Savage Bryson -- the Negro Overseer - An Agonizing but Unavailing Plea for Mercy -- A Slave-Whipping and a Tragedy." According to Livermore, the print shows the cooper, Matt, being whipped by a "gigantic" man as his master watches at the left. Other slaves look on in horror. Matt offense was accidentally burning his master in the blacksmith's shop. For this, Livermore explained, a "rope was roughly tied around his wrists, and thrown over a beam projecting from the roof of the shop, by which he was drawn up with jerks, until his toes barely touched the ground." The overseer, she noted, "stood by urging on the terrible flagellation, in the most brutal and fiendish manner conceivable." (p. 217), 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. 214., Caption underneath the image reads: "The swish of a long whip flashed through the air. The lash sank with a cutting sound into Matt's quivering flesh. Shrieks of torture pierced the skies as blow after blow fell upon the body of the suffering man. I stood immovable, sick and faint, and heard and saw it all, paralyzed with horror and fear.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Creator
- Helmick, Howard, designer
- Date
- [1897]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1897 Liv 29518.O p 214, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2838
- Title
- The flogging of females
- Description
- This scene is set in the West Indies. A female slaveowner dressed in colonial attire whips the back of a female slave who is hunched forward and whose hands appear to be bound. To the left, another white female sits in a chair and watches. To the right, three West Indians -- a man, a woman, and a child -- look on in horror., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol I, no. 10 (October, 1835), p. 109., Small caption underneath the image reads: "What ! -- the whip on WOMAN's shrinking flesh!", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [October 1835]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per A 245 16998.D v 1 n 10 cover page, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2859
- Title
- Turning the tables on the overseer
- Description
- Bitter anti-slavery print depicting a group of slaves about to whip their white overseer, who has been bound to a tree on the plantation grounds. Before the overseer, the male slave holding the whipping lash boldly pulls up his sleeve as the slave next to him takes off his hat in a mock gesture of respect. Smiling men, women, and children of all ages stand, sit, and lean on a fence, surrounding the overseer in anticipation of his whipping., Illustration in New York Illustrated News, November 28, 1863, p. 73., Also published as a loose print by the African American press, Robert and Thomas Hamilton, possibly the first black press to publish separate prints., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
- Date
- [1863]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare **Per D 8.5 1571.F Nov 28 1863 p 73, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2863