In Greater Manchester
- How money from slavery made Greater Manchester
- The importance of cotton in north west England
- The Lancashire cotton famine
- Smoking, drinking and the British sweet tooth
- Black presence in Britain and north west England
- Resistance and campaigns for abolition
- The bicentenary of British abolition
Global
Who resisted and campaigned for abolition?
Slave Trade
John Raphael Smith (1752-1812), after George Morland, 1791
Mezzotint print
Object number P.2009.4
Purchased
See this object at The Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester This object may not always be on display. Please check with the venue before visiting.
View images © The Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester
This mezzotint print, after George Morland's painting, was a popular reproduction in abolitionist circles. The crudely propagandist image is not based on actual events but represents a dramatised scene of the selling of enslaved Africans. White slavers manhandle a pacified African man whilst a woman is shepherded meekly into a boat she will share with another weeping figure. The African trader to the left, negotiating with the slave ship’s captain, looks on with a cruel gaze. The unrestrained dog in the foreground, kept by the trader to keep his slaves in line, is in direct contrast to the shackled Africans. The animal is accorded more freedom than the men, women and children who are traded as commodities.
It was published in Paris in 1794, at the height of the French Revolution, to commemorate the abolition of slavery by the ruling National Convention:
'The National Convention declares the abolition of Negro slavery in all the colonies; in consequence it decrees that all men, without distinction of colour, residing in the colonies are French citizens and will enjoy all the rights assured by the constitution'.
When Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul of France in 1799, however, the ruling Consulate tried to undo what it saw as the excesses of the Revolution and in 1802 reintroduced slavery to France and her colonies. It was not abolished until 1848.
This information was provided by curators from The Whitworth Art Gallery.