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Here we have a fascinating contemprary scene from the American domestic slave trade. It is a contemporary depiction of a slave coffle moving slaves from Virginia sout to the plantatiohns of the Deep South. The image was drawn in 1839. It is a dramatized scenes with overseers flaling away at the slaves--an aboltionist stapple. Once that is set aside, however, it does illustrate how the domestic slave trade was conducted. We are not sure, however, about the slaves were dressed..
Afler the importation od slaves was banned by Congress (1808), gradually a domestic slave trade developed and American slavery became self-sustaining. The horrors of the middle passage, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, are some of the better known aspects of African slavery. Rarely disscused are the agonies involved in the inter-state slave trade. The domestic slave trade was conducted by both sea and overland routes. Slave coffles were common sites in the South. The overland slave trade generally developed from Tidewater Virginia and the Carolinas where there were slave breeding operations to the highly profitable plantations of the Deep South (Georgia, Alabama, Mississipi, and Louisiana). After the Texas War for Independence (1836) the slave trade extended into Texas. The drawing here is a depiction of a slave coffle moving slaves from Virginia south to the Deep South plantations.
HBC is a historical site emphasizing imagery. Primarily we focus on photographs, but because slavery in America ended at bout the same time that photography became widespread, the photographic images of slavery are limited. Most are portaits and even these are limited. Thus the images of slavery are mostly deawings. This presents a problem, because a drawing can depict anything the illustrator wants to show. Thus the accuracy of drawings, even contemporary drawings hs to be assessed. They may show the illustrators philodophical and political attitudes more than a faithful depiction of reality. For HBC this is also interesting, but to the etent we can we will try to acquire any available information on the images depicted.
The drawing here comes from a book written by James Buckingham, The Slave States of America (London, 1842), vol. 2, facing p. 553. It is held in the Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library.
James Silk Buckingham was a British parliamentarian and temperance advocate. He was an abolitionist who traveled throughout the ante-bellum South. His opposition to slavery has to be considered in assessing his work which was not limited to slavery, but rather a discussion of the South in general. He was, however, a keen observer and his descriptions are a valuable source of information. The drawing here is a dramatic depiction. The text of the book seems much more objective.
Images to be published in the 1850s had to be engraved. There are two names on the image hee, :W.H. Brooke, F.S.A." and F. Holl". We are not sure who they are, but are probanly the engravers, at least one must be the engraver.
The caption provided by Buckingham reads, "Gang of Slaves journeying to be sold in a Southern Market"; illustrates the domestic slave trade in the U.S. James Buckingham viewed this scene in September, 1839, a few miles from Fredericksburg." Buckingham wrote, "It was in a valley that we met a gang of slaves, including men, women, and children, the men chained together in pairs, and the women carrying the children and bundles on their march to the south. The gang was under several white drivers, who rode near them on horseback, with large whips, while the slaves marched on foot beside them; and there was one driver behind, to bring up the rear. .... They were chained together for precaution, rather than punishment; because when accompanied by one or two white men ... they might be tempted to rise against them in any solitary part of the road, or, at the very least, escape from them if they could ..." (pp. 552-553).
This drawing has been used in other books. It sometimes has the caption "Croosing the Rapidan". The Rapidan was a Virginia river. Buckingham does not, however, identify the river depicted. Some authors think that it was unlikely the Rapidn being depicted.
Even a cursory glance of the drawing here tells one that the illustrator was an abolitionist. This is clearly shown by the flaling whips, a staple of the abolitionist press. The use of whips is clearly substantisated by a range of historical accounts as well as photographs of freed slaves. We suggst that with coffles like this that the overseers were not constantly whipping the slaves as the image suggests. Rather the fact that they had whips (and Buckingham tells us that they did have whips) was probably sufficent to ensure submisdsive compliance. We wonder about two other aspects of the idrawing. Who are the people in the foreground? We suspect that they were meant to be Native Americans. This probably would have appealed to European readers, but we doubt that uch groups of Native americans were likely to be encountered in Virgina by 1839. Second, we are not at all sure about the accuracy of the clothing the slaves are wearing. It seems more African than American. That seems to us unlikely, but am unsure why Buckingham depicted them in this way. The basic depiction, however, seems reasonably accurate. Namely that the men were chained because they were the nost likely to resist or escape. The children and women did not need to be chained because they were more compliant and likely to follow the men.
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