Images(4)

Sugar Dish

Date1825-1830

OriginEngland

MediumSoft-paste porcelain (bone china), enamel and gilding

DimensionsOH: 4 5/8"; Diam. bowl: 4 1/2"; Diam. foot: 3 1/4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. John C. Austin, Phyllis M. Carstens, Mrs. Joyce Longworth, Ann Winter Odette, John F. Orman, Jr., Ms. Joan M. Ploetz, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas G. Potterfield, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Prioleau, Joan N. Woodhouse, the Dwight P. and Ann-Elisa W. Black Fund, and the John R. and Carolyn J. Maness Family Foundation

Object number1998-37

DescriptionSugar Bowl: stepped circular foot rises to open sugar bowl of tall cylindrical shape; decorated one side with a scene of a kneeling woman in chains,her hands clasped in front of her, as though pleading, under the shade of a tree; the other side decorated with gilt script reading, "East India Sugar not made / By Slaves. / By Six Families using / East India, instead of / West India Sugar, one / Slave lefs is required."
Label TextSlavery was as much an economic system as it was a system of oppression. Many who advocated abolishing the slave trade understood that putting economic pressure on slave-dependent industries might hasten the end of the trade and perhaps of slavery itself. Sugar production in the West Indies and cotton production in the American Deep South were particularly vulnerable.

English abolitionists urged consumers not to purchase sugar from the West Indies, but rather from the East Indies where it was produced by free labor. This tactic was used in the 1790s during the campaign to abolish the English slave trade. It was revived in the 1820s as the English movement turned its objective toward the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, including the West Indies.

These campaigns were primarily supported by female antislavery associations located throughout England. Adherents distributed thousands of pamphlets and broadsides door-to-door in an effort to persuade British consumers to abstain from purchasing West Indian sugar.

English ceramic manufacturers, always astute to new marketing opportunities, took advantage of the campaign by making sugar bowls inscribed with pro-abstention slogans. Displayed on a tea table, it proclaimed its owner's abolitionist sentiments and support for the boycott of West Indian produced sugar.

The importance of this urn-shaped footed sugar bowl rests not only with its form and material -- both unusual survivals -- but also with the hand painted image of a kneeling slave on one side and the gilded inscription on the opposite side: "East India Sugar not made / By Slaves. / By Six families using / East India[n], instead of / West India[n] Sugar, one / Slave less is required." Although the English Parliament abolished the slave trade in 1807, slavery itself continued in England until its elimination in 1834. Part of the emancipation movement included a campaign to abstain from using West Indian sugar. Displayed on a tea table, this sugar bowl proclaimed its owners' abolitionist sentiments and allowed women a socially acceptable way to express their views.

This sugar bowl is an important survival. The kneeling figure -- adapted from Josiah Wedgwood's famous cameo -- depicts an enslaved woman; emphasizing women as well as men were enslaved. The other side bears a verse used by the abstention campaign:

"East India Sugar not made / By Slaves. / By Six families using / East India[n], instead of / West India[n] Sugar, one / Slave less is required."

InscribedGilded verse: "East India Sugar not made / By Slaves. / By Six families using / East India, instead of / West India Sugar, one / Slave lefs is required."
ProvenancePurchased from Hunter & Margolin Antiques in Yorktown, Virginia.