Images(8)

Scenes of Slave Life

DateProbably 1832-1835

OriginAmerica, New England (probably)

MediumInk and watercolor on wove paper

DimensionsPrimary Support: 7 11/16 x 12 1/2in. (19.5 x 31.8cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number2007.301.1

DescriptionSix different vignettes of slave life are shown on a single, horizontal-format, rectangular sheet of paper, interspersed with text and with some texts enclosed within balloons issuing from the figures' mouths. There are three scenes across the top half of the paper, three across the bottom. At upper left, a partially clad slave kneels, hands uplifted in a pleading posture, on a grassy knoll beside a small tree or shrub in which two birds perch. At lower left, a white man fires a gun at a slave beset by dogs in a swamp. At top center, white bidders eye various slaves who are shown at an auction block; in the distance at the left of this vignette, a white man appears to be whipping a slave at the foot of a liberty pole. At bottom center, three slave women hoe a crop while a male overseer brandishes a whip over their heads. At upper right, a group of slaves marches in front of a white horseman cracking a whip over their heads. At lower right, a slave woman hoes, a chain attached to a collar around her neck; beside her stands a small child, while a bird perches in a shrub or small tree to the left, and two in another to the right.

Artist unidentified.

The stained wood frame shown on this item in the auction catalogue illustration was over-sized, not original, and not acquired with the artwork.
Label TextThe piece's images and inscriptions convey strong abolitionist sentiment, but it has not been determined whether they were created as means of public exhortation or expressions of private concern. Abolitionist societies were well established in America in the eighteenth century but proliferated greatly during the nineteenth, culminating in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

Illustrating some of the most degrading and horrific aspects of slavery, vignettes such as these would have been very familiar to abolitionists; indeed, with time they achieved symbolic status. The simplification and rapid execution of this particular series gives it the quality of pictorial shorthand.

The capture of a runaway at lower left is likely the most unusual scene in the group. Yet familiar as were the images of auctions, whippings, gang drives, and back-breaking labor, the precise origins of most of these compositions cannot be traced. The exception is the kneeling slave at upper left, clearly derived from the male slave on the seal of the English Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

The origins of most of the inscriptions have been traced. See "Notes."

InscribedAll inscriptions on the front are In ink in script.
In the balloon emanating from the mouth of the slave at upper left is: "Am I not a woman and a sister?"
In the upper left corner: "'Thou art our sister! though in chains and humbled to the dust,/Thou art our sister before Him, the almighty and all just,/Who wrote upon thy stricken brow and [word erased and/or illegible] sorrow darkened eye,/A tabernacle for a soul, a soul that cannot die./[Heed?] thou and we will trust in Him, that he/will make us strong/To break the grievous fetters, that have/bowed thee down so long./Wait thou with patient charity, long-/suffering, yet kind,/And we will pray most fervently/that to our heart and mind/The wisdom and the grace be/given to speak the truth in love/And pure, as it is hymned forth from/angel thrones above,/Till thine oppressor's heart shall raise/the penitential prayer,/And thou our sister, shalt be free,/as the pure, blessed air:/Then shall be joy in heaven o'er him,/and peace on earth for thee;/And the wide universe shall ring with songs/of jubilee.'"
in the balloon emanating from the mouth of the man at lower left is: "Seize him seize him".
In the margin below the scene at lower left is: "Ever-glades of Florida".
On the banner in the vignette at top center is: "Liberty".
On the sign in the vignette at top center is: "Horse market".
In the balloon emanating from the auctioneer's mouth in the vignette at top center is: "good, child, who bids, who bids, going, going, gone".
In the balloon emanating from the mouth of one of the bystanders in the vignette at top center is: "one hundred dollars".
On the lectern below the auctioneer in the vignette at top center is: "Slaves/horses and/other cattle/to be sold/at auc-/tion".
In the balloon emanating from the mouth of one of the slaves in the vignette at bottom center is: "'When will Jehovah hear our cries?/When will the sun of freedom rise?/When will a Moses for us stand,/And free us all from Pharoah's hand?/What though our skin be black as jet,/Our hair be curled, our noses flat,/Must we for this no freedom have/Until we find it in the grave?"
In the balloon emanating from the mouth of another of the slaves in the vignette at bottom center is: "Men from England bought and sold me,/Paid my price in paltry gold;/But, though slave they have enrolled me/Minds are never to be sold."
Above the vignette at upper right is: "Is not this the first that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of wickedness to/undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye/break every yoke?/Isaiah, 58, chapt 6th verse".
In the balloon emanating from the horseback rider's mouth in the vignette at upper right is: "Whoa [horse?], gee up, step [word illegible; __te], go along Jack."
Below the vignette at upper right is: "Acts 17 chapt 26th verse/And hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth/Malachi 2 chapt 10 verse/Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal/treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the/covenant of our fathers?"
Above the vignette at lower right is: "'Shall we behold unheeding,/Life's holiest feelings crushed?/While woman's heart is bleeding/Shall woman's voice be hushed?"
Below the vignette at lower right is: "'Grant me indulgent Heaven, that I may live/To see the miscreants feel the pain they give;/Deal Freedom's sacred treasures free as air,/Till slave and despots be but things which were'".
On the reverse of the sheet, at upper left in pencil, is: "About/1836".

MarkingsA blind stamp within an oval appears parallel to the side in the upper right corner. It appears to read "CLARE/MANUF C", the words appearing above and below an unidentied image.
ProvenanceThe item was sold at auction 8/5/2007 from the collection of dealers Betsy and Timothy Trace, whose son, Jonathan Trace, advised Milly McGehee that his parents had bought the object in the 1940s from New York state dealer Thurston Thacher. No prior history has been documented.