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British Visual and Textual Rhetoric on Slavery

JessN

British Visual and Textual Rhetoric on Slavery
by Jessica Nottingham, Caroline Williams and Raenesha Green

The Transatlantic Slave Trade was established as a barter system that compromised the lives and future of African natives. Over four hundred years of human trafficking and enslavement ensued before the immoral institution of slavery was legally brought to an end. During the latter part of those centuries, an abolitionist movement began as people finally began to open their eyes to the brutality and unethical mistreatment of the African race. With the rise in voice of abolitionists throughout Britain in the late eighteenth century, came also an increase in rhetoric from writers of Romanticism. One of such was the talented William Blake, some of whose work expresses what was considered at the time to be radical views and abolitionist beliefs. Displayed in Figure 1,Blake’s “Little Black Boy” is an example of his work that supported the abolitionist agenda and sympathized with those many souls that fell victim to the slave trade. Lisa Parker’s analysis of Blake’s “Little Black Boy” in her master's thesis asserts that many scholars tend to overlook this poem as a work of abolition. However, Parker further examines Blake’s poem and suggests that,

The child’s innocence triggers an instinctual response from the more experienced reader, who can immediately detect the complexities within Blake’s seemingly simple lyric. The reader yearns for the boy’s justice more than the speaker himself, making Blake’s poem an engaging antislavery poem as well as an effective abolitionist piece of literature. (35-36)

Not only was Blake an advocate for the freedom of slaves, but he also was a sympathizer with Britain’s factory workers under the harsh working conditions to which they were subjected. The industrialization of Britain and the flourishing of capitalism emphasized a typical environment in which the “rich get richer and poor get poorer.” Dr. Hakim Adi’s article “Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade” emphasizes that “the human and other resources that were taken from Africa contributed to the capitalist development and wealth of Europe.” This in turn meant that the upper class population, i.e. factory owners, became wealthier, without offering incentive or benefits to their workers. The hands of the industry were not limited to men, but also extended to women and children, all forced to work long days under horrible conditions with absolute minimum recompense.

Figure 1. “The Little Black Boy” poem and engraving by William Blake. The image depicts the verses in the second stanza of the poem. The stanza is as follows,

            My mother taught me underneath a tree
            And sitting down before the heat of day,
            She took me on her lap and kissed me,
            And pointing to the east began to say. (5-8)

The mother sits on the southern plains underneath a tree, presumably somewhere in Africa, with her child on her lap, the two of them surrounded by the light of the rising sun. The scene is a familiar one where a mother passes on what she knows to her child, showing her affection by holding him on her lap and kissing him. The child pointing up toward the heavens represents childlike curiosity as he looks to his mother to show the trust and belief he has in her. This displays a scene that is no different between mother and child of any race. The shining, rising sun represents how the sun, God’s light, shines upon them like it does upon anyone else.

Songs of Innocence, copy G (object 29, "The Little Black Boy")

William Blake

A Brief history of the poet WIlliam Blake

According to Paul Mitchell’s online article, Blake was born in 1757, the son of parents who practiced a religion of Protestant Dissent. Mitchell also explains that Blake attended drawing school, and learned the trade of engraving upon which he relied for his primary income. In the early 1790’s, during the height of the most popular protest against the British Slave Trade, Blake engraved images of slavery to display the torture slaves endured. This support for human rights began a major theme in his art and poetry. Blake’s work informed readers in England of the horrors surrounding the enslavement of African Americans in the British colonies. The images still today remain shocking because they express the conditions of slavery. Through these works, Blake helped to pave the path of abolition and opposition to all forms of slavery. The British Parliament abolished the Transatlantic Slave Trade in 1807.

Although Blake and his comrades supported the fight against slavery and labor issues, one political cartoonist appeared to underestimate the severity of slavery as seen in Figure 2, the cartoon entitled Slavery. Freedom. In this cartoon, the viewer’s eye is first drawn to the large man standing behind a large cask, of wine, perhaps. One may observe that he symbolizes wealth and fortune, and therefore can relate neither to the factory worker to the left, nor to the slaves on the right. His dialogue, though, appears to be sympathetic to the slaves as he tells the factory worker not to despair, because he has all these rights that the slaves have not been fortunate enough to experience. Ironically enough, some of these rights apparently refer to the Reform Bill or Act, passed in 1832, which called for Parliamentary reform and extended the voting rights. The UK Parliament website, however, explains that though this Act revealed a potential for change, many of the men were still not eligible to vote because they did not meet the “property qualifications.” The Fat Man in the cartoon also mentions the Magna Carta, which basically states that nobody, including the Crown, is above the law. Though these are significant acts of political reform, they do little to nothing to help the conditions of factory workers and their families. The dialogue between the worker and his wife gives the implication that no matter how hard one works, starvation and struggle are almost guaranteed. The worker then states that he would basically have to “draw a cart harness’d like a beast and get fed by the parish” in order to receive sustenance. Below the factory family is a pile of tax forms that indicate the worker feels all he does is work to pay taxes. Beneath the left part of the picture is the word “slavery,” which imparts the view that the factory worker is an example of “white slavery.” On the opposing side of the cartoon is a family of black slaves, whose portrayal implies that they do not have to worry about hunger. As the father asks his son, “A ah pikaninny you eat yam yam you belly full?”, the artist denotes the family as a unit, happy and fed, with fellow slaves dancing in the background. Beneath the slave family is the word “freedom.” The cartoon may depict what many onlookers witnessed at the first sight of slavery: a merry people seemingly with no qualms about their situation. But that concept is misconstrued as it is only an outside perception of a deeper, suppressed struggle. Many slaves had the appearance of outward happiness due to the fear of consequences for expressing their true inner turmoil. In the middle of the picture is a spread of slavery books, anti-slavery reports and propaganda, indicating that the artist thought more time and effort were put toward the abolishment of slavery, than concern and care toward improving the conditions of lower class British citizens. What the artist of this cartoon does not represent is the reality of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Millions of Africans were tragically affected by the mass casualties that occurred aboard slave ships in the Middle Passage. Back then, as now, and even in times before, people tended to be blind to injustice.

Slavery. Freedom

Unknown

Figure 2. Slavery. Freedom. This image demonstrates the fact that there was more than one type of slavery taking place in the British Empire. While Africans were being exploited and treated cruelly, so were the lower classes who worked in the factories, to a much lesser degree. However, the point stands that they too were in need of freedom. The papers below the barrel, on which the fat (wealthy) preacher/ abolitionist advocates the abolishment of slavery, show that slavery was on the forefront of everyone’s mind, while the similar plight of others was completely ignored . On the left is the English worker, exhausted and barely making ends meet to support his family. On the right is a depiction of what many (wrongly) believed slaves’ lives were like: well-fed, happy, dancing, and without a care in the world. The creator of the image disregarded the fact that slaves owned nothing and were often punished harshly for little to no reason. The artist’s intent was to shift focus away from freeing slaves to helping free Englishmen from a type of slavery that he felt was closely related to serfdom. However, there were Romantic poets like Blake who recognized the seriousness of both slavery and Britain’s labor conditions and did their best to shed light on both without discarding one for the other.

Even though the enslavement of Africans had been hundreds of years ongoing, many British did not fully comprehend the cruelty and brutality of slavery until they came face to face with freed slaves and others with firsthand accounts. According to Parker, one of Blake’s first experiences with the brutality of slavery came from his work on the engravings for Captain John Gabriel Stedman’s A Narrative, of Five Years’ Expedition, Against the Revolting Negroes of Surinam. As shown in Figure 3, Blake’s graphic work displayed his sense of compassion for those that suffered the harshness of slavery (Parker 3-4). Blake passed away before he could bear witness to any further progress toward the abolition of slavery and the regulation of factory laws and conditions. In an online article, “On the Sacramental Test Act, the Catholic Relief Act, the Slavery Abolition Act, and the Factory Act,” Elsie B. Michie discusses how headway was made in 1833, when Parliament passed bills to abolish slavery and regulate child labor laws. Both these acts involved negotiation: slaves were mandated to a 12 year apprenticeship before obtaining freedom, and instead of improved conditions for all factory workers, only children began to see some relief. In the years that followed, more improvements came as more advocates continued a campaign for equality and regulation reform. With the help of literature, social issues such as slavery and labor laws were brought to the surface. “The Little Black Boy,” along with other abolitionist poetry, helped to make the British more aware of the inhumanity and injustice of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Figure 3."A Negro hung alive by the Ribs to a Gallows," an engraving by William Blake for John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, Object 2 (Bentley 499.2) Blake successfully blends his visions of slavery with Stedman’s to portray the cruel realities of slavery. The slave in the picture assumes an almost Christ-like position with the rack representative of the cross. As noted by Gupta, “the large eyes of the slave follow a similar pattern to Western depictions of Christ.” The skulls and bones around and behind the slave definitely indicate he is only one of many who have been subjected to such cruelties. In the distance is a ship that possibly represents the British Empire and how far removed it was from atrocities taking place under its reign, although that did not make Britain any less responsible for this cruel and brutal behavior.

Narrative of a Five Years' Expedition, copy 2 (object 2, "A Negro hung alive by the Ribs to a Gallows")

Works Cited

Adi, Hakim, Dr. “Africa and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.” BBC. N.p. 5 October 2012. Web. 23 November 2014.

Blake, William. “The Little Black Boy.” The William Blake Archive. Ed. Eaves, Morris, Robert Essick, and Joseph Viscomi. Lib. Of Cong. Web. 26 Nov. 2014

Blake, William, ill. John Gabriel Stedman, Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, object 2 (Bentley 499.2) "A Negro hung alive by the Ribs to a Gallows." The William Blake Archive. Ed. Eaves, Morris, Robert Essick, and Joseph Viscomi. Lib. of Cong. Web. 22 Nov. 2014

Gupta, Anukriti. “Ideas of Slavery and Racism in the Poems of William Blake.” Academia.edu. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.

Michie, Elsie B. “On the Sacramental Test Act, the Catholic Relief Act, the Slavery Abolition Act, and the Factory Act.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. 23 November 2014.

Mitchell, Paul. “William Blake: A Radical Visionary." World Socialist Web Site. 2001. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Parker, Lisa Karee, "A World of Our Own: William Blake and Abolition." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2006. Web. 23 November 2014.

“The Reform Acts and Representative Democracy.” UK Parliament Website. Web. 23 November 2014.

Slavery. Freedom. 1832. Lithograph print. Lib. of Cong., Washington, D.C. PC 1-17219. Web. 23 November 2014.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.