Plan of an African Ship's lower Deck, with Negroes, in the proportion of not quite one to a Ton.

Date1789

Printer Mathew Carey

OriginAmerica, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

MediumBlack and white line engraving

DimensionsOH: 4 1/4" x OW: 13 1/2"; Framed: OH: 11 1/2" x OW: 20 1/2"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1996-97

DescriptionPlan of a slave ship's lower deck with space divided for men, women, boys, girls, and storage.

This engraving printed by Mathew Carey in Philadelphia is thought to be one of three variants of the slave ship broadside. This version was most likely published in the May 1789 issue of the journal American Museum.

Purportedly, there were over 10,000 copies of the plan of the slave ship Brooks in one form or another issued between March and July of 1789. The copies descended from three primary versions of the plan, which can be distinguished by there place of origin: Plymouth, Philadelphia, and London.
Label TextThe colonial economy relied heavily on the labor of enslaved Africans. From the fifteenth to the end of the nineteenth century, 12.4 million people were transported across the Atlantic to various points of entry – 1.8 million did not survive the passage. This diagram of the lower deck of the ship, The Brooks, shows how people were lined in rows by size and gender within the cramped spaces of the ship’s hold to maximize the cargo space. Two hundred and ninety-four individuals are depicted here, but on a 1785-1786 voyage, The Brooks carried its maximum cargo of 744 Africans.

Antislavery reformers distributed plans of slave ships to educate viewers on the conditions that Africans faced as a result of the trade. This diagram, published by Matthew Carey in Philadelphia, was originally accompanied by text that referred to this arrangement as, “human creatures, packed, side by side, almost like herrings in a barrel and reduced nearly to a state of being buried alive.”