ARTIFACT OF EMPIRE1830s

Title - “To The Friends of Negro Emancipation”

Creator - Alexander Rippingille 1796 – 1858

Type - Oil Painting

Date of Creation - ca. 1834

Content - Blacks celebrating the Emancipation of slaves in British

dominions, August 1834.

• This painting shows the celebration of slaves in the West Indies, a term used to collectively name most of the islands

in the Caribbean.

• Alexander Rippingille was a white, British citizen working as a painter alongside his brother Edward in Bristol.

• To The Friends of Negro Emancipation? Not to the Negros themselves?

• It sounds like a congratulations to those who fought for the slaves, as opposed to a congratulations on being free for the

first time in generations.

“Emancipation Notice” - on Tree Trunk

Act for the Abolition of Slavery 1833

This painting represents the triumph

over slavery in all colonies of the British Empire, beginning in

1834.

History:

• 1807: Act prohibiting the Slave Trade

• Slaves were still held, but not sold, within the British Empire.

• In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement revived the campaign against the institution of slavery.

• In 1823 the first Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Britain.

• On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act received Royal Assent.

• This paved the way for the abolition of slavery.

• On 1 August 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but they were indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system that

meant gradual abolition.

• The apprenticeship system was disbanded in 1838 due to peaceful protests in Trinidad.

• Already, the former slave population held a certain amount of sway in political matters across the Empire.

• The government set aside £20 million for compensation of slave owners for their "property“.

• It did not, however, offer the former slaves any sort of compensation.

Former Slaves seen here striking off their chains and burying them in the sand.

They did assume certain white customs, for example, shirts and suspenders, wooly hats and jackets.

Linking this painting to what we’ve been reading in class:

Jane Eyre:

• The character of Bertha Mason is suggested to be a second

generation Creole.

• Her grandmother was probably a slave in the West Indies who was

used as a supplement wife.

• Functions of a Creole.

• Slave Trade not really alluded to in Jane Eyre.

• Jane Eyre published in 1847, 14 years after Emancipation for Slaves

in British colonies.

Slave ship leaving the coast

Even after the slaves were emancipated, European outlooks on their African neighbors were still frighteningly racist.

Even in 1931, almost 100 years later, Africans were still depicted with jet-black skin, big pink lips and displayed in a submissive, savage and primitive light.

Do they not seem to be portrayed almost as monkeys in these images?

BIBLIOGRAPHYhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintin_in_the_Congo#mediaviewer/File:Angry_King_in_Tintin.JPG

http://www.zephirin.eu/TINTIN/aucongo.HTML

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Slavery-Abolition-Act-1833.pdf

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/slavery/

http://library.artstor.org/library/iv2.html?parent=true

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#mediaviewer/File:Birth-of-a-nation-klan-and-black-man.jpg