Black History
Racist Caricature about Free African Americans' Celebratory Response to the U.S. Abolition of the African Slave Trade
c. 1833 Etching titled, "Life in Philadelphia. - Grand Celebration Ob De Bobalition Ob African Slabery." Drawn and Engraved & Published by W.H. Isaacs, 68 St. James Bazaar, England, Very Fine.
This highly Racist Engraving measures about 9.75" x 8.25", engraved by I. Harris. Slightly trimmed along the right margin, small .5" edge split in the bottom right selvage. This Racist caricature being about Free African Americans' celebratory response to the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the United States, an Act of Congress passed in 1807 that took effect in 1808. Depicts a group of over fifteen well-dressed men sitting and standing and drinking, smoking, and making toasts around a large dinner table. A number of the men raise goblets and/or pipes in the air. Soup tureens are visible on the table. One man, standing, drinks from a rum bottle. In the far right, an attendee, in a wide-brimmed hat, carries away another who is unconscious, his tongue out, and holding a pipe. The men are attired in waistcoats with tails, pants and pantaloons, some striped, vests, and cravats. Some wear their hair in pompadour styles and one man has white hair. The biting toasts address "De Orator ob de day," William Wilberforce, a prominent British abolitionist; William Eustis, Governor of Massachusetts and the disgraced former Secretary of War under Madison; "De Sun" which should shine at night; Joseph Gales, a publisher and secretary of the American Colonization Society who believed that only states had the right to emancipate enslaved persons; "Ning Edwards;" "De Genius ob Merica;" the "White man" who wants to colonize blacks "now he got no furder use for him;" and "De day we Celembrate" and why it did not come sooner. Figures are portrayed with oversized and exaggerated features and their skin tone is depicted in black hand coloring.
During the early 19th century, summer celebratory processions commemorating the anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade occurred annually in major Northern cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that provided that No New Slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution.
Charles Hunt was a respected London engraver who was most well known for his aquatints of sporting subjects. In 1828, Edward Williams Clay began to issue a series of engravings he titled "Life in Philadelphia," depicting members of Philadelphia's free black community in various stereotypical and absurd situations.
They were so popular that other English engravers took up the theme and not to be outdone, produced a series of images that were even more exaggerated and vile than Mr. Clay's. The present is one of the better-known English engravings from that series.