Sclaven-Handel. Die Menschlichkeit beleidiget or The Slave Trade. An Insult to Humanity. (Anti-slavery broadside)

Date1794

Compiler Tobias Hirte

Printer Samuel Saur

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

MediumLetterpress with woodcuts on laid paper

DimensionsFramed: 26 1/2 × 36in.

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number2021-180

DescriptionTitle reads: "Sclaven=handel./ Philadelphia, Gerduct fur Tobias Hirte"
Title continues below text block: "Die Menschlich=/ keit beleidiget"
Label TextThis is one of the earliest anti-slavery broadsides published in the United States. The title translates as: "The Slave Trade. An Insult to Humanity." The text is a German translation of an English broadside published a year earlier entitled “Remarks on the Methods of Procuring Slaves" which was excerpted from a 1791 parliamentary report that documented the testimonies of abolitionists describing the horrors of slavery. Tobias Hirte, an apothecary, hired printer Samuel Saur to publish his adaptation and German translation of the anti-slavery missive in 1794. By adapting and translating this anti-slavery broadside into German, Hirte was hoping to persuade German-speaking Pennsylvanians to oppose slavery. His Moravian parents immigrated to Pennsylvania in search of religious freedom, however Hirte left the community as an adult. The Moravian church, much like the Lutheran and Reformed church were not opposed to slavery. The text of this print specifically addresses the treatment of enslaved Africans in the West Indies (the Caribbean).

The broadside is illustrated with woodcuts that were engraved by James Poupard, a recent immigrant to Philadelphia from Martinque.They show the violence, terror, and dehumanization of slavery through its graphic imagery designed to provoke sympathy from contemporary viewers. The only other known copy is held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

(Image in unconserved state)