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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

Title: [Justice and Britannia.]
Description: An allegorical figure representing Justice hovers over the figure of Britannia, who is seated on a throne with a slave kneeling and praying at her feet. Although the slave wears shackles around his wrists and ankles, it is unclear whether his chains have been broken or remain intact. Behind him, a mother and child gesture toward Britannia. Ostensible subject of the engraving is Britain's renounciation of slavery. It accompanies the following lines in Montgomery's poem: "Britannia, -- she who scathed the crest of Spain, / And won the trident sceptre of the main, / When to the raging wind, and ravening tide, / She gave the huge Armada's scatter'd pride, / Smit by the thunder-wielding hand that hurl'd / Her vengeance round the wave-encircled world; / -- She shared the gain, the glory, and the guilt, / By her were Slavery's island-altar's built, / And fed with human victims; -- till the cries / Of blood, demanding vengeance from the skies, / Pierced her proud heart, too long in vain assail'd; / But justice in one glorious hour prevail'd : / Straight from her limbs the tyrant's garb she tore, / Spotted with pestilence,and thick with gore; / O'er her own head with noble fury broke / The grinding fetters, and the galling yoke, / Then plunged them in th' abysses of the sea, / And cried to weeping Africa -- 'Be free!' (p. 19-20), Plate in James Montgomery's Abolition of the Slave Trade: A Poem, in Four Parts (London: Printed by T. Bensley, for R. Bower, the proprietor, 1814), p. 18., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Imagery.
Creator: Worthington, William Henry, ca. 1795-ca. 1839, engraver
Date: Dec. 1, 1809
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare *Am 1814 Mon 13197.Q p 18, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2720

Title: View of the Capitol of the United States after the conflagration in 1814
Description: Abolitionist allegorical book illustration juxtaposing a coffle of enslaved Black men and boys standing before the ruins of "a monument to liberty," the United States Capitol, following the British occupation of the city during the War of 1812. Author suggests that the destruction of the Capitol was a sign of divine displeasure to promote the abolition of slavery. In the foreground, two white men enslavers lead shackled men and boys pass the ruin. Two allegorical white female figures, one of Liberty, hover in the clouds above. Enslaved people were traded in Washington, D.C. and used in the reconstruction of the Capitol., Title from item., Frontispiece from Jessey Torrey, Jr.'s, A Portraiture of domestic slavery in the United States (1817)., Torrey was a Philadelphia physician, abolitionist, and author of tracts on morals and the diffusion of knowledge., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of views of the District of Columbia. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Creator: Lawson, Alexander, 1773-1846, engraver
Date: 1817
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Government Buildings - Washington, D.C. [5740.F.9b], http://www.lcpimages.org/afro-americana/F181.htm

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