Images of the Domestic Slave Trade and Their Use in

Anti-Slavery Publications from 1820-1865

Samantha Lewis

Material Culture and the Built Environment

Research Paper

April 24, 2012

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“Images are themselves a kind of language; rather that providing a transparent window into

the past, they are an enigma, an opaque, distorting, mystifying mechanism of representation

the must, like language, be decoded to be understood.”1

Slavery was one of the most important issues of the early 19th century. Legal in the

South, illegal in the North the issue of slavery divided the country. Abolitionists worked very

hard to change opinions and laws, thereby eliminating slavery in the entire United States. One

of the most important tools for the anti-slavery movement was print media. Since newspapers,

magazines, and pamphlets could be printed rather cheaply after the 1820s, abolitionists could

afford to print large amounts of these publications and send them to their supporters, or

supports could now afford a subscription to the newspaper. Images were an important part of

most anti-slavery publication. Images of the domestic slave trade such as auctions, slave

caravans and bereaved families, especially when combined with images of important American

symbols such as the Capitol Building, were used often in abolitionist publications because of

their emotional impact. Abolitionists could count on such images creating pity and indignation

in their viewers. The anti-slavery newspapers and monthly periodicals The Liberator, the

Genius of Universal Emancipation and the Anti-Slavery Record, all tried to promote their cause

and persuade their readers that slavery should be abolished by using visual representations of

the domestic slave trade to show the hypocrisy (slavery in a ‘free’ country), and cruelty

(separation of families) of slavery.

The study of images falls into the field of material culture. Material culture is the study

of artifacts, whether made by man or manipulated by him. While most scholars tend to focus

on written documents, which are a type of material culture, they ignore objects, images, and

spaces that reveal as much about people as words do.

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Images and illustrations of slavery in the early 19th century were heavily influenced by

concepts of race and power. In many images in the early 1800s race is distinguished not just by

the color of the skin, but also by the facial features, clothing, hair and posture of people. Slaves

were usually shown with large noses, ape-like faces, and tightly curled hair. The visual

resemblance between blacks and apes was meant to show that blacks we uncivilized and barily

human. Clothing was used to demonstrate both class and race. White people in illustrations

were normally fully dressed in fancy clothing while slaves were depicted in plain, simple

clothing or naked from the waist up. Images of the time also usually showed slaves stooping,

bending or kneeling, while white people stood tall and upright.2 In the early 1800s the ideal

white body the one depicted in classical Greek or Roman sculpture. Beauty, intellect, dignity

and culture were all qualities associated with classic sculpture and white people but not with

blacks. Because of the servile status of blacks, “The black body was relegated to the ‘lower’

realm of representation… the media of graphic illustration and popular caricature.”3

Images associated with the domestic slave trade were both signs and symbols. Signs

are “something that stands for something else” and, “It is the consensus of a group, not the

designer or manufacturer, that established [the] cultural meaning [of the sign].” In this sense,

the image of a slave auction is a sign. It literally stands for the selling of slaves, but it also

came to represent in the eyes of abolitionists the destruction of families and the evils of slavery

in general. Signs tend to change meanings when the audience changes, so an auction block

may symbolize the destruction of families and the moral sin of selling people to abolitionists

and northerners, but it might mean economic freedom and power to the supporters of slavery.

The exact meaning of a symbol can be different to different groups.4

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Images are usually printed on paper. The material culture of print material considers

what was printed in newspaper and also the physical material of which newspapers were made.

Newspapers grew more popular as paper and printing presses spread, this made newspapers

cheaper. The ability to print detailed images also improved overtime so newspapers that had

very few illustrations in the 1790s could have several images per issues in the 1840s. The fact

that newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and broadsides were printed on paper had an impact on

how they were valued and preserved; the more common and widely available a product (paper

for example) the less it is valued.5 Broadsides, programs, and other mass produced materials

are known as ephemera for a reason, such material culture objects were easily destroyed,

quickly forgotten and usually not given much value.

The scholarly inquiry into the use of illustrations by anti-slavery proponents is not new.

Phillip Lapsansky’s paper “Graphic Discord: Abolitionist and Antiabolitionist Images” in The

Abolitionist Sisterhood uses material culture in the form of illustrations to explore antislavery

and antiabolitionist attitudes of the 1830s. Lapsansky claims, “The eighteenth-century

abolitionists understood and appreciated the heightened impact graphics brought to the

antislavery argument…Illustrations of instances of cruelty and abuse of slaves were important

tools in the effort to create antislavery sentiment through the North.”6

The connection between the domestic slave trade and anti-slavery movements has been

explored by Steven Deyle in his paper “The Domestic Slave Trade in America.” Deyle argues,

“When an organized antislavery movement emerged in the North, it made the domestic slave

trade a fundamental component of its attack. This traffic was central in the development of

antislavery theory and tactics, and it remained a prominent feature throughout the life of the

movement.” 7 Deyle claims,

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“Few features of the system had a bigger impact on a northern audience than the dramatic accounts of human beings sold on an auction block, of the tearing of husbands away from their wives, of screaming children from their mothers’ arms…. Therefore, given their keen understanding of the effect that this aspect of the slave system had on their audience, it was only natural that Garrison and the other abolitionists featured the domestic trade in the Liberator and that from the very beginning they made it a fundamental component of organized antislavery activity.”8

Though Deyle mentions some material culture aspects of the antislavery movement, such as the

masthead of The Liberator, he does not primarily take a material culture approach to the topic.

The domestic slave trade began in the 1790s. It became the only legal way of acquiring

slaves after the African slave trade was abolished in 1808 and it continued throughout the Civil

War. Slave traders sold hundreds of thousands of slaves from the Upper South (Maryland,

Virginia, and North Carolina) to the Lower South (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,

Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana). Soil exhaustion in the Upper South made staple

crop production unprofitable and hence reduced the need for slaves, while in the Lower South

demand for slaves was high as planters were just establishing cotton plantations. Owners sold

slaves to traders who took them by land in coffle or by sea to slave markets. Traders worked

individually or in firms. Slaves were sold individually and in groups, in rural as well urban

areas including Washington, D.C. Nearly every slave owner sold slaves to traders at one time

or another, contrary to the paternalist myth that slaves were rarely sold, and the destruction of

families was one of the most horrible results of the domestic trade. Some slaves attempted to

resist the sale of their loved ones by hiding the slave in question or by threatening to harm

themselves. Even slaves fathered by white masters were sold if the price was right.

Abolitionists, or people opposed to slavery, have existed in America since before the

United States was a country. The Revolutionary War increased debates about slavery as people

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tried to reconcile the existence of slavery in a country based on freedom and equality. Religion

was often used as an argument against slavery. Some people believed slavery was a sin and

that God had created all men as equals. After the ending of the African slave trade in 1808,

some states such as Maryland moved away from slavery but the introduction of cotton into the

Mississippi Valley only increased the dependence of some states on slave labor. As the

differences between the Northern and Southern economies increased in the early 1800s,

animosity between the two sections of the country intensified. Originally anti-slavery

sentiment found primarily in the Northeast and was spread by sermons, lectures, or limited

pamphlet printings, but the 1820s saw “technological advances [which] made printing cheap

enough for newspapers and tracts to be practical as a popular form of communication, and

advances in mass education [even among free blacks] expanded their audience. ” 9 Abolitionists

were quick to make use of the improved print media. The power of images had been discovered

by abolitionists as early as the 1780s and the improvements in printing and education meant

that anti-slavery images and articles could be disseminated to more people and to people

outside of the Northeast. The 1820s also saw the admission of new states into the nation

(Missouri) and the acquisition of new territories. With new territories and states came the

question of whether slavery would be allowed in them, thus the issue of slavery was brought

into political and public debates in the early 19th century.

Anti-slavery newspapers and magazines were published by both white and black

abolitionists. Some publications were more concerned with religion, while other focused on

politics and publications often differed over the best way to end slavery, some supported

violence while others were pacifist. Anti-slavery publications often did not last for more than a

few years, especially if their primary audience were free blacks as even in Northern cities most

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free blacks did not earn much money. White abolitionists were often wealthy or well off and

had the time and money to devote to the anti-slavery crusade. One of the most famous and

longest running anti-slavery newspaper was The Liberator which was published by William

Lloyd Garrison and ran for more than thirty years. The Genius of Universal Emancipation was

also a long running anti-slavery newspaper, published for eighteen years, and it was published

in the North and Midwest. Though only published for three years, the Anti-Slavery Record was

a heavily illustrated monthly magazine. All three publications used images of the domestic

slave trade to promote the anti-slavery cause and educate readers about the evils of slavery.

William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator from 1831-1865. He was born in

1805 in Newburyport, Massachusetts to a strongly Baptist mother. His father abandoned the

family early. Garrison was apprenticed to a printer for seven years. In January 1828 he

became editor of the National Philanthropist and in the fall of 1828 he agreed to start editing

an anti-Jackson paper in Vermont, but only if he could write about temperance, anti-slavery,

peace and moral reform. Garrison began editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in

Baltimore in 1829. Initially a supporter of gradual emancipation, Garrison was converted to the

cause of immediate emancipation while living in Baltimore at a Quaker boarding house with

several African Americans. Accused of libel for claiming that a prominent Newburyport ship

owner was involved in the illegal slave trade, Garrison was arrested and sentenced to two

months in jail. A New York reformer paid Garrison’s fine and he was released. He spent the

next six months lecturing in Northern cities.

In 1830 with the help of Isaac Knapp and Steven Foster, Garrison established a weekly

newspaper funded by donation from his lectures, subscriptions from the black community, and

aid from the businessman who paid his bail. The three hired a young black apprentice, and the

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black community was “heartened by the uncompromising stand the editor of the newspaper

took in his first issue.”10 Banned in the South, white agents of The Liberator were threatened,

and the state of Georgia offered a $5,000 reward for the capture of any editor, publisher, or

agent of the newspaper. Garrison was a supporter of education and manual labor school for

African Americans and he helped organized the integrated New England Anti-Slavery Society

in Boston in 1832. Some white and black abolitionists became known as Garrisonians.

Garrison spent time speaking in Britain and barely escaped being killed by a group of whites

while he spoke at a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1835; this incident

actually led to increased subscription to his newspaper. Criticized for his pacifism in the late

1830s, Garrison continued to print his paper until the end of the Civil War.11

The first thing a person sees when picking up a newspaper or magazine is the title on

the top of the first page. Sometimes called a masthead, this section of the paper includes the

title of the newspaper, the date, the place of publication and sometimes the publishers name and

a slogan or image. To create consistence and help readers identify a paper, the masthead is

decorative but remains the same for years at a time. The slogan on the masthead of The

Liberator is “Our Country is the World-Our Countrymen are All Mankind.” While this slogan

stayed consistent, the masthead of the paper changed three times from 1831-1865.

For the first two years, the masthead of The Liberator did not have an image (figure 1.1)

but on 23 April 1831, the masthead changed. The second masthead for The Liberator (figure

1.2) showed the title of the newspaper in large letters and behind it was an image of several

white and black people standing under a sign that says “Horse Market” and next to a man

behind a podium. A man in coat and hat stands behind the podium, on which is printed,

“Slaves, Horses, & Other Cattle to be Sold At 12 oc.” Four white men in coats and hats

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surround a family of slaves; a young boy and girl clutch at a woman (probably meant to be their

mother) who cannot bear to show her face, a middle aged man (the father) stands to the left and

slightly behind the three and another black man sits at the base of the podium also covering his

face. This is obviously an image of a slave sale in progress as the auctioneer (man behind the

podium) has his mallet raised and one white man is extending his hand as if to bid. To the left

of this group and smaller in size, to indicate distance from the sale, is a white man raising a

whip to strike a black man tied to a pole. Behind this scene and further in the distance is the

Capital Building with a flag bearing the term liberty flying above it. This one image depicts

both the cruelty (the separation of families and whippings) and hypocrisy (slavery in a land of

liberty) of the domestic slave trade. This image attempts to provoke in the viewer feelings of

sympathy for the slave family and indignation that people are sold like horses in a land that

professes to value freedom. The masthead would change again in 1836.

The masthead of The Liberator changed again on 1 June 1836 (figure 1.3). The title

was now placed in front of two images. The image on the left is very similar to the image on

the second masthead. A group of three black men and a black woman stand with heads bowed

to the left of an auctioneers podium that read “Slaves, Horses, & Other Cattle For Sale,” while

a group of three well dressed white men stand to the right of the podium. In this image, a small

slave girl stands on a table before the podium, obviously on sale. To the left of the auction and

in the distance the familiar image of a white man raising a whip to a slave tied to a pole and the

Capital Building can be seen, though the flag no long flies over the building.

What makes the third masthead different from the second is the image behind the title

and to the right. In this image, a black woman and two children sit under a tree from which a

banner baring the word “Emancipation” flies. A well-dressed black man stands before the

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three while in the mid-ground four black men work preparing boards, and ten black figures

stand in the background with hands raised to the rising sun while one of the men waves a flag.

Meant to be a before and after comparison, the family on the left is being sold, while the blacks

on the right are celebrating their freedom and working hard to build a new future. While the

second masthead showed only suffering, the third masthead encouraged the viewer to imagine a

world without slavery. Though the blacks in the second image are free, they continue to work

hard thus the image attempts to assure the viewer that slaves can care for themselves once

freed. All of the people except one in the second image appear to be black, perhaps this is

meant to convey the message that even if slaves receive their freedom, they will not intermix

widely with whites. This would not be the last masthead for the newspaper.

The Liberator masthead was change once more on 31 May 1850 (figure 1.4). In an

article in that issue, Garrison described the change in the masthead:

The idea represented is the same as in the former head, the contrast of slavery with freedom, with the addition of a central medallion representing Jesus, the Liberator, around whose head is the inscription: ‘I Come to Break the Bonds of the Oppressed.’ At his right hand a slave kneels, extending his manacled hands for protection. On the left, a slave holder, whose whip has fallen to the ground, shrinks from his rebuke. Beneath the medallion is a scroll bearing these words: ‘Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself.’

An auction scene is depicted to the left of the medallion, but compared to the previous

mastheads there are more people and animals in the scene, while the Capitol building still

stands in the background. To the right of the medallion is an image of a large black family

seated outside their house looking at a parade of people celebrating as they pass though a

triumphal arch baring the word “Emancipation.” This masthead includes an element of religion

lacking in the earlier images. The reader is still encouraged to read from left to right the before

image of slavery and the after image of freedom.

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In the second, third, and forth mastheads for the Liberator, the evils of slavery are

depicted not by slaves doing field labor or primarily by physical violence, but by the slave

auction. Garrison decided that the first thing readers would see in his paper would be the image

of people being bought and sold like animals or things, and the separation of family. The

separation of families and the auctioning of slaves was a common result of the domestic slave

trade; since Africans could no longer be imported, all slaves were born in the United States

(thus all had families in America) and if a planter wanted a new slave he or she had to buy them

through an intermediary and transport them across the country. Unfortunately, with more

pieces included in the latter mastheads, the detail of facial features is lost, but this image fits the

stereotypes of images of slaves from the early 1800s. All of the while people are dressed in

fancy clothing while the slaves are dressed plainly and all of the white people in the left side of

the image are taller than or are raised above the slaves. While mastheads were the most visible

images in newspapers and magazines, other illustrations also depicted the evils of the domestic

slave trade.

The illustration, “Mirror of Slavery”, printed in the Liberator on 4 January 1843 is an

example of a typical image from the domestic slave trade (figure 3). A black man (which the

viewer can tell not from his skin color but from his clothing and hair) stands on a raised

platform with a white man in fine clothing. The white man waves a mallet, thus implying that

he is the auctioneer, and waits for the waiting crowd of white men to bid on the slave. A white

man near the platform is gazing at the slave’s face while feeling the muscles in the slave’s leg.

In the foreground and to the right of the platform stand a black woman covering her face and a

black man holding her back from going to the black man (her husband, brother, or son) who is

up for sale. A small black girl clings to the black woman’s skirt. Behind the auction scene,

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lines of armed soldiers march past and the Capitol Building stands in the far background with a

flag baring the words “All men are free and equal” flying above it. A sign in the upper left

corner of the illustration states “Slaves at Auction!” The juxtaposition of images of a slave

auction and the Capitol Building are a common domestic slave trade image. Washington, D.C.

in the early 1800s was a center for trading and transporting slaves; slaves from Maryland,

where their labor was no longer needed, would be taken thru D.C. on their way to markets in

the South and West. This image was probably intended to draw the viewers’ attention to the

inhumanity of selling human beings and separating families and to the hypocrisy of the Unitied

States, while creating sympathy for slaves.

The Genius of Universal Emancipation was a newspaper published from 1821-1839 in

Mt. Pleasant, Ohio. The newspaper founded by Benjamin Lundy. Motivated by the Missouri

Crisis, Lundy believed an anti-slavery newspaper would be the best way to “sway public

sentiment to the anti-slavery side.” He hoped that such a publication would bring enough

abolitionist voters to the ballot box that a majority could be achieved and slavery abolished. 12

A Quaker abolitionist, Lundy wrote for The Philanthropist (Ohio) and the Nation

Enquirer (Philadelphia) before starting his own newspaper. Lundy founded the Maryland Anti-

Slavery society in 1824, and toured the North lecturing against slavery in 1828. He is known

for his role in introducing William Lloyd Garrison to the abolitionist movement. The two

worked on The Genius together for a year, but went their separate ways in 1829 after

disagreements over Garrison’s behavior. The Genius advocated gradual emancipation and the

colonization movement, while Garrison’s paper, The Liberator, promoted immediate

emancipation and criticized the colonization movement. Lundy would publish his newspaper

until his death in 1839.13

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The slogan of the newspaper, printed on the masthead of the Genius of Universal

Emancipation, was a quote from the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be

self-evident: that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain

inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Though the

slogan remained the same, the newspaper went through two mastheads during its publication.

The first masthead (figure 2.1) shows a detailed picture of the Capital Building with lines

radiating out from the top of the center doom of the building. The lines are reminiscent of light

rays being given off by a beacon. The masthead seems to argue that the Capitol Building, the

source of all American laws, was a beacon to the American people and the world. This image

plus the slogan seem to indicate that the Declaration of Independence and the laws created from

it are a beacon or base of American liberty and greatness.

The 5 January 1828 issue of the newspaper has a second masthead in addition to the one

described above. The second masthead showed the words “The Genius of” in a cloud with

beams radiating from it (figure 2.2). While the radiating beams are the same as in the main

masthead, the fact that they are coming from a cloud is more often seen in religious imagery.

While the main masthead implies that liberty comes from a political source, the secondary

masthead implies that liberty comes from a religious source. The two are not necessarily

opposed, as many abolitionists believed freedom and equality were given by God but protected

by human laws. The main masthead of the paper was changed half way through the papers

publication run.

Beginning in 1830 the masthead of the newspaper changed. The image changed from

the Capital Building to eagle with spread wings. The eagle carried branches in one claw and

arrows in the other, and a banner with “E. Pluribus Unum” on it was clasped in its beak. This

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is a classic American symbol of power, peace with the threat of violence if provoked, and

equality.

None of the mastheads from the Genius of Universal Emancipation display images of

slavery; instead, images of religion and American patriotism are shown. Perhaps Benjamin

Lundy was trying to join in his readers’ minds the ideas of patriotism, religion, and

emancipation or equality. He may have been promoting the belief that a good American would

support all three. While the mastheads stressed laws and religion, the illustrations in the

newspaper exposed the inhumanity of the domestic slave trade.

One powerful image from the Genius of Universal Emancipation is shown in figure 4.

In this image, a group of six chained slaves (all naked from the waist up) are directed towards a

ship by a finely dressed white man on a horse carrying a whip. Another white man in nice

clothing and with a whip stands before the six slaves taking order from the man on the horse.

The slaves are at the end of a pier and a large ship with many people on board waits just off

shore. To the right and behind the horseman a chained woman and two chained children who

have been separated from the rest of the group. Directly behind the woman and in the mid-

ground are several rows of slaves working in a field, behind them and behind a hill is the

Capitol Building with an American flag flying above it.

The slaves in this image are all half-naked, except for the woman. The lack of clothing

was a 19th century symbol of the barbarity and exoticness of slaves.14 Implements of

subjugation, such as whips and chains, are prominently shown in the image and not even the

woman and children are spared. The slave coffle, or line of chained slaves traveling under

white supervision, is a very typical image of the domestic slave trade. As in the image Mirror

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of Slaver, this image was intended to draw the viewers’ attention to the cruelty of slavery and

the hypocrisy of America while creating sympathy for the slaves.

The Anti-Slavery Record, published fro 1835-1837, was a monthly magazine printed in

New York and Boston and published for the American Anti-Slavery Society by R.G. Williams.

With issues of approximately twelve pages in length, the paper regularly published a picture on

the front page.

The February 1935 issue, the second issue of this magazine, shows an image of a long

double file line of slaves, all naked from the waist up, marching on a rough road (figure 5).

The two slaves in the front of the line are playing violins and one slave is caring an American

flag. A white man is shown riding beside the procession with a whip raised above his head.

The quote under the image reads “How Slavery Honors our Country’s Flag.” Though the two

slaves are playing music, they are not in a festive situation and it is implied that they are not

playing by choice. Perhaps the music is meant to keep the slaves marching or perhaps it is just

for the pleasure of the white slave trader. There are few if any chains used in the image, as if

restraining the slaves was not necessary, but the article under the image informs the reader that

the slaves were in fact handcuffed with a long chain stretched between the columns and joined

to each slave’s handcuffs with a short chain. The image of the flag within the image of slavery

creates dissonance between what the flag symbolizes (freedom, equality, and liberty) and what

slavery symbolizes. The writer of the article under the image saw just such a parade in

Kentucky in 1822. Upon seeing this sight, the man remembers, “as a man, I sympathized with

suffering humanity; as a Christian, I mourned over the transgressions of God’s holy law; and as

a republican, I felt indignant, to see the flag of my beloved country thus insulted.”15 The image

of a line of marching slaves is an image associated with the domestic slave trade because that

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was how groups of slaves were transported across the south and west. In this image, the

difference between the ideal America and the actual America made obvious and the image

attempts to make the viewer think about the differences and how things could be different. The

slave caravan was used several times in the Anti-Slavery Record.

Another image of a caravan was published in the May 1835 issue of the paper (figure

6). In this illustration, an angry white man holds a whip above his head in one hand and the

arm of a black infant in the other. A female slave (this can be determined by the fact that the

clothes on the slave cover the top half of the slave’s body, which would only be necessary if the

slave was a woman) kneels at the white man’s feet with arms outstretched as if begging for the

return of her child. Another white man stands behind and to the right of the first white man. A

group of four slaves is marching away off the left hand side of the frame. The phrase under the

image reads, “Cruelties of Slavery.”

Perhaps the man with the whip took the child to punish the woman or perhaps the man

intends to kill the child as he may be slowing the group down. The buying of a slave child so

young was not common as at this age the child was more of a hindrance to a master then a

benefit. The article under the image gave the example of a trader from Kentucky who had two

women with nursing infants in his caravan and “knowing that these infants would depreciate

the value of the mothers, the trader sold them for one dollar each!” This illustration highlights

the separation of mother and child, a tragic but common affect of the domestic slave trade; as

the article below the image states, “This [separation of families] is a necessary consequence of

the internal slave trade- a trade which is inseparable from slavery.” 16 Playing on the readers’

love of family, this image creates pity and helps the viewer realize the inhumanity of slavery.

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The separation of parent and child is also the subject of an image from the June 1835

issue of the Anti-Slavery Recorder (figure 7). In this illustration, a black woman kneels on a

rocky outcropping, her arms outstretched towards a boat that is taking away her two children.

The small boat is being rowed by three well dressed white men, one with a raised whip, to a

larger ship further off shore. The poem under the image is titled The Slave Dealer and it is

about a man racked with guilt who confessing to his mother that he whipped a slave woman to

death. The religious tone of the poem is clear as the man “cannot pray” and knows that he will

be held accountable to God for what he did, “But that same hour her dread appeal, Was

registered on high; And now with God I have to deal, And dare not meet his eye!” The poem

graphically described the crime committed by the slave dealer, “As I whirled it o’er and o’er

my head, And with each stroke left a gash. With every stroke I left a gash, While negro blood

sprang high.” 17 Such language is meant to sicken the reader and make the plight of all slaves

seem more pitiable. Though this image probably depicts the kidnapping of blacks from Africa,

the separation of families was just as common in the domestic slave trade and just as

heartbreaking. Some slaves when they discovered that their families were being broken up

went to desperate lengths to prevent it.

The image called “the Desperation of a Mother” shows a black woman in a barn

standing above two naked children lying on a blanket over a pile of straw (figure 8). Draped in

a flowing dress, the woman’s hands are raised and in one is an axe and in the other a

candlestick. The woman is poised to strike her young children and kill them. The story that

accompanies the image explains that upon learning that her children were sold to a trader, the

mother and in the middle of the night “took an axe, proceeded to the place where her (yes, her)

boys slept, and severed their heads from their bodies! She then put an end to her own

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existence.”18 Knowing that she would be separated from her children permanently by the

domestic slave trade, this woman decided to end their lives and her own. The image seems to

ask the viewer if the mother’s actions were understandable and whether the viewer would be

willing to do the same in such circumstances. Another image meant to invoke pity by showing

the separation of families, this illustration showed the desperation of a woman who was forced

to have children but could protect them and was not allowed to see them grow up.

The image “The Flogging of Females” was published in the Anti-Slavery Record in

October 1835 (figure 9). In this image, a black woman stands in the center of the picture,

shirtless and slightly crouched. A white man in fine clothing stands behind her with a whip

raised above his head. Another white man (to the left of the man with the whip) sits in a chair,

smoking a pipe watching the white man whip the slave. To the right of the slave stand two

black men and a black child dressed in robes with turbans on their heads also watching the

beating. The black men both have their hands raised to their face and the child stands with

arms wide as if in shock at what he is seeing. Under the image is the title The Flogging of

Females and below that is the quote “What!- the whip on Woman’s shrinking flesh!” The

article that accompanied this image explains that the illustration is a representation of a

common scene in the West Indies where the British attempted without success to abolish the

flogging of women. The article goes on to claim that similar scenes occur in the United States

where, “That child is not reared by her parents. This one sees them whipped-hears them called

strumpet, harlot, thief, scoundrel, and every name that denotes infamy.”19 This image clearly

shows the brutality of slavery, it intends to create pity and indignation in the viewer as women

were supposed to be protected and children were not supposed to see their parents being

mistreated. The text under the image stated that the child in the picture or children in similar

Lewis 18

situations are not raised by their parents, thus alluding to the separation of families caused by

the domestic slave trade.

Images are a powerful tool. They can convey impressions and feelings that cannot be

put into words. Our culture today relies heavily on photographs, but in the early 19th century

photographs had not been invented. Printed images or illustrations in the early 1800s were

rather crude drawings that illustrated stereotypes, biases, and beliefs of the people who created

and distributed them. Slavery and the fight to end it were controversial issues in the early

1800s. Each side used any tool at their disposal to attract supports. Newspapers and magazines

were used heavily by abolitionists. Most anti-slavery newspapers and magazines included

images in their mastheads or in the body of the publications. Often images of the domestic

slave trade, such as slave auctions or slave coffles, were used in publications because they

symbolized for many what was wrong with slavery. To some the selling of people was a sin

but to others the real tragedy of slave sales was that they separated parent from children and

spouses from each other. Images of auctions taking place before the Capitol Building regularly

appeared in anti-slavery publication. These illustrations pointed out the hypocrisy of having

slavery in a country based on freedom and equality. Slave caravans often depicted blacks in

chains being watched by a white man with a whip. Chains and whips were symbols of the

physical violence of slavery. Abolitionist images became so well know in the 1800s and “The

power of the abolitionist imagery was so strong that it made it very difficult for those

sympathetic to slavery to create any convincing alternative imagery of the institution…by the

mid-nineteenth century much of the traditional imagery of slavery had already been

appropriated by abolitionists.”20(23) Where in centures past images of slaves served to

highlight the power and strength of masters, by the early 1800s “In the slaveholders’ world,

Lewis 19

signs of coercion-manacles, neck collars, chains-now had to be suppressed because of

abolitionist associations.”21 (26) Images of the domestic slave trade were used by anti-slavery

publications because the editors and publishers of those publications believed such images

would make viewers aware of the evils of slavery and would convert readers to the cause of

emancipation, and in some respects they were correct.

1 Barbara E. Lacey, “Visual Images of Black in Early American Imprints,” The William and Mary Quarterly 53, no. 1 (Jan., 1996): 138.

2 Ibid., 137-180.3 Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monuments in Nineteenth-

Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 12.

4 Jacques Maquet, “Objects as Instruments, Objects as Signs,” in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, edited by Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 30-40.

5 Robert Friedel, “Some Matters of Substance,” in History from Things: Essays on Material Culture, edited by Steven Lubar and W. David Kingery (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 41-50.

6 Phillip Lapansky, “Graphic Discord: Abolitionist and Antiabolitionist Images,” in The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America, eds. Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 203-207.

7 Steven Deyle, “The Domestic Slave Trade in America: The Lifeblood of the Southern Slave System,” in The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas, edited by Walter Johnson (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 92.

8 Ibid., 98.9 James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community, and Protest

Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 206.

10 Horton, 212.11 Horton, 211-239.12 “The Genius of Universal Emancipation,” Michigan State University, accessed April 23, 2012,

https://www.msu.edu/~dykhous2/Genius/genius.html.13 “Benjamin Lundy, Abolitionist,” Michigan State University, accessed April 23, 2012,

https://www.msu.edu/~dykhous2/BenLundy.html.14 Lacey, “Visual Images of Blacks in Early American Imprints.”15 James H Dickey, “How Slavery Honors our Country’s Flag,” The Anti-Slavery Record (1835-

1837); Feb. 1835; 1, 2; American Periodicals, 13.16 “Cruelties of Slavery,” The Anti - Slavery Record (1835-1837) 1, no. 5 (May 1835): 49,

http://search.proquest.com/docview/124352597/1364855A5855BDBF673/2?accountid=15099.17 "The Slave Dealer," The Anti - Slavery Record (1835-1837) 1, no. 6 (1835): 61,

http://search.proquest.com/docview/124320613?accountid=15099.

18 “The Desperation of a Mother,” The Anti-Slavery Record (1835-1837) 1, no. 9 (Sep., 1835): 97, http://search.proquest.com/docview/124328484/1364860AECB14F49628/2?accountid=15099.

19 “The Flogging of Females,” The Anti-Slavery Record (1835-1837) 1, no. 10 (Oct., 1835): 109, http://search.proquest.com/docview/124334117/1364970937D29F74C4F/2?accountid=15099

20 Kirk Savage, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves: Race, War, and Monuments in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 23.

21 Ibid., 26.