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
According to St. Clair, the engraving features the slave Sampson, who was referred to as such on the basis of his enormous strength. Sampson was owned by a Dutchman whose plantation was near the Essequibo River in Guyana. After Sampson's second escape and capture, his master sentenced him to a severe flogging, and then took steps to deter future escape attempts. As St. Clair explained, Sampson "had an iron collar fastened round his throat, which had three legs sticking out from it, having, as represented in the sketch, hooks at their ends, which render it impossible for any human being to escape through the thick underwood in this country. In addition to this, his left leg was chained to an enormous heavy log of wood, which, when he walked, was thrown over his left shoulder. In this state, he was obliged daily to perform as much work as any other Negro on the estate.", Illustration in Thomas St. Clair's A Residence in the West Indies and America (London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, publisher in ordinary to His Majesty, 1834), vol. 2, p. 214., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
Date
[1834]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1834 St. Cla 8958.O v 2 p 214, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2739
