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- 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
- 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
- [Mother taken away]
- Description
- Having been sold by her former mistress ("a wicked woman, a slaveholder, and a member of the Presbyterian church") to a new owner, a Kentucky slave shrieks and cries as she is torn away from her two children, ages seven and nine. The woman's new owner smokes and calmly looks on., Illustration in the American Anti-Slavery Almanac, for 1838 (Boston: Published by D.K. Hitchcock, 1837), p. 17., Verse underneath the image reads: "Ev'n her babes, so dear, so young, / And so treasured in her heart, / That the cords which round them clung, / Seemed its life, its dearest part; / These, ev'n these, were torn away! / These, that, when all else were gone, / Cheered the heart with one bright ray, / That still bade its pulse beat on!", 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 17, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2752
- Title
- A slave caught without a pass
- Description
- This night-time scene depicts an overseer, who, having come upon a slave who left his plantation without a pass, forces the slave to dance for the amusement of himself and his two companions. As the slave dances, the overseer cracks a whip at his feet., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. II, no. V (May, 1836), whole no. 17, p. 1., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
- Date
- [May 1836]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per A 245 60026.D v 2 n 5 cover page, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2850
- 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
- [Instruments of torture]
- Description
- Illustration shows an "instrument of torture" used on Roper during his years of slavery. Of it, he wrote, this is a machine used for packing and pressing cotton. By it, he [i.e., the slave-owner Mr. Gooch] hung me up by the hands at letter a, a horse moving around the screw e, and carrying it up and down, and pressing the block c into the box d, into which the cotton is put. At this time, he hung me up for a quarter of an hour. I was carried up ten feet from the ground, when Mr. Gooch asked me, if I was tired. He then let me rest for five minutes, then carried me round again, after which he let me down and put me into the box, and shut me down in it for about ten minutes." (p. 52), Illustration in Moses Roper's A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery (London: Darton, Harvey, and Darton, 55, Gracechurch Street; and to be had of the author, at the Anti-Slavery Office, 18, Aldermanbury, Murrays, Mare Street, Hackney; Hudson, 18, Bull Street, Birmingham, MDCCCXXXVII [1837]), p. 51., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Punishment Scenes.
- Date
- [1837]
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1837 Roper 101478.D p 51, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2758