Woman and child on auction block,1800s

Woman and Child on Auction Block

In this illustration from the New York Public Library Collections, there is a white man on a pedestal with a paper sign that says “Sale” and he has an audience of white males. There are a few black female slaves with children that are being held for auction. In the background there are a few black male slaves being tortured. The woman with the young child look like they are about to be separated from each other. This image brings a feeling of sadness. This illustration evokes empathy in its viewer because the families being separated from each other. The audience feels sorry for these people having to go through these situations. This image raises many questions, including: I would like to know how colored people were taken and how were they taken apart from their families, as well as to where would these auctions take place? Also, if the people in these auctions were mostly middle class or upper class?

This image almost brought up the connection of Oroonoko and Imoinda in the novel Oroonoko (1688) by Aphra Behn about how they were separated and sold into slavery. Behn portrays Oroonoko as a blend of Roman and African traits and has lived peacefully among the whites and was even a slave owner. Oroonoko and Imoinda were in love with each other, but the elderly king wanted Imoinda for himself. He conveyed this plan to separate the two and eventually sold Imoinda into slavery. Oroonoko is a story about separation and the agony that follows. This part of the story relates to the image due to the fact that we can see two colored people being separated from each other. A mother and daughter and their love for each other is seen through how devastated they look. Of course, a mother’s love is not the same as the love that people in love have, but it connects in the way that Oroonoko and Imoinda’s love for one another is being taken away from each other. Literally being torn apart, while the mother and daughter are also being torn apart from each other. When two people are separated from each other they usually go through some sad phase, especially if it involves deep feelings of love. In the story Oroonoko was devastated that Imoinda was not with him anymore because he believed that she had died. “The first effects of Imoinda’s death had given him; insomuch as having received a thousand kind embassies from the king, and invitation to return to court, he obeyed, though with no little reluctance, and when he did so, there was a visible change in him, and for a long time he was much more melancholy than before.” (36). Further on into the story Oroonoko was taken to the British colony of Suriname, where he was sold into slavery to a relatively kind man who sees him as a friend. Eventually he and Trefry (the man who bought him from the captain) talk about who Imoinda was to Oroonoko and how he was in love with her. Trefry felt sympathy for him and decides to help him by giving him the name Caesar. Trefry talks about this woman slave named Clemene and how beautiful she is. Wanting Oroonoko to meet her. Little did they know that he would soon be reunited with the love of his life (41-47). Oroonoko does not produce as much sympathy from its readers as in the illustration “Woman and child on auction block.”

Throughout the short novel Oroonoko goes through a lot. He went from being a slave owner to being sold as one by a so-called friend. The despondent Oroonoko realizes he now will never be free and that his child will be born in captivity. He informs Imoinda that he has decided to kill her honorably, take revenge on Byam, and then kills himself. She thanks her husband for allowing her to die with dignity, and he cuts her throat and removes her face with his knife. “The lovely, young and adorned victim lays herself down before the sacrificer, while he, with a hand resolved, and a heartbreaking within, gave the fatal stroke, first cutting her throat, and then severing her yet smiling face from that delicate body, pregnant as it was with the fruits of tenderest love.” (72). But Oroonoko becomes prostrated with grief and can never generate enough energy to go after Byam. Sinking ever deeper into depression, he waits for eight days next to the body of his dead wife until the stench brings Byam’s men to the site, where they immediately set about killing him. Killing the one person who meant the world to him along with the unborn baby. This kind of separation lead Oroonoko to his death.

Works Cited

“Woman and Child on Auction Block.” NYPL Digital Collections, digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6fb48e0e-0795-4ac1-e040-e00a18061701.