Woman and child on auction block,1800s

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade facilitated the forced migration of millions of Africans to the Western World from its inception up until the end of the 19th Century.  In addition to the physical cruelties that the enslaved endured at the hands of their masters, they also suffered the emotional cruelties of being torn from their families, homes, and cultures.  For many, the uncertainty of the fates of their loved ones was a greater burden than that of the forced physical labor and ill treatment that they were met with upon arrival in the west. In his autobiographical work The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, the former slave and abolitionist speaks openly about the horrors he faced under slavery and the pain that losing his family caused him.  The digital archive image “Woman and child on auction block” conveys visually the threat which slavery presented to families that Equiano emphasizes in his writing.

Discovered in the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections Archive On Slavery, the photo entitled “Woman and child on auction block” offers a visual representation of the cruelty slaves suffered as they were purchased and separated from their loved ones.  In the image, an auctioneer presents his fellow white men with two slaves: one, an older woman, and the other a young girl; presumably, they are mother and daughter, or somehow else related. The girl is clinging to her mother tightly while eyeing the men bidding with suspicion and terror.  The ferocity with which the child holds onto the older woman suggests she fears separation, an all too common fate for slaves. The woman appears focused on comforting the child as best she can: she has her arms wrapped around her in a protective way, and her head is tilted down towards the girl as though she is committing her face to memory.  The white men are dressed in clothes which suggest immense wealth, while the slaves’ clothes are simple and revealing, which creates a stark contrast; the slaves are easily identifiable. In the lower left corner of the photo, a slave woman sits on the ground near the selling platform, nursing an infant as she waits her turn to be sold. The scene of separation which the woman and daughter on the platform display foreshadows the possibility of separation of the infant from his or her mother, as well.  In the background, a white man raises a whip into the air, foreshadowing the cruelty that all of these slaves will experience once they are sold. A white man standing directly in front of the platform, and another, perched on what appears to be a crate, hold whips as well, implying their readiness to use them, should the slaves misbehave on the auction block. Positioning the white men as primarily standing, or holding weapons, while the slaves appear fearful and taking a protective posture, serves to clearly depict the power hierarchy which exists between slave owners and the enslaved. The slave owners are portrayed as menacing and violent and the slaves are women and children, typically viewed as innocents.  These choices in subject depiction serve to paint an image that condemns the slave trade and the violence it perpetuates.

In his Interesting Narrative, Olaudah Equiano recounts his own experience with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and explores the ways in which his life has been shaped by his kidnapping and subsequent enslavement in Africa.  When he and his sister are first taken from their homes, they are terrified, but staying together helps them cope during this time of distress. Equiano describes that “the only comfort we had was in being in one another’s arms all that night, and bathing each other with our tears” (47).  Despite their hardship, their love for each other sustains them and keeps them going even when the future looks bleak. Like Equiano and his sister, the mother and daughter standing on the auction block in the digital archive image are being confronted with the knowledge that they might be separated during the slave buying process.  In what may be their last moments together, the mother chooses to soothe her daughter and offer her love and protection while it is still within her power. Equiano considers this aspect of slavery one of the most cruel practices it involves, because it means slaves must endure their suffering alone, without the comfort of their loved ones.  He writes, “Are the dearest friends and relations, now rendered more dear by their separation from their kindred, still to be parted from each other, and thus prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling their sufferings and sorrows” (60). Upon his separation from his sister, Equiano loses his last human link to the life he led in Igbo, and emphasizes how damaging it was to be parted from her without knowledge of her fate.  The family on the auction block faces a similar threat, and Equiano’s writing suggests that their separation will be one of the greatest challenges that they will face as slaves.

According to Equiano, capitalism and profit are the driving force behind such readiness to separate families.  As he observes the manner in which families are separated upon the slave ship’s arrival in Barbados, he reflects, “Must every tender feeling be likewise sacrifices to your avarice?” (60).  The Oxford English Dictionary defines avarice as the “inordinate desire of acquiring and hoarding wealth” (“avarice”, n.). In Equiano’s eyes, the greed of the slave owners was such that they would have no qualms about splitting apart families if it were more profitable to do so.  The clothes and bearings of the white men depicted in the digital archive image are indicative of their economic fortune, displaying the ways in which the slave masters directly benefited from the practices of the slave trade. As a businessman, Equiano understood quite well how money factored into these processes.  In his argument for the abolition of the trade at the end of The Interesting Narrative, Equiano offers an alternative to slavery that he hopes will appeal to those in power whose main motivation is profit.  He writes, “If the blacks were permitted to remain in their own country, they would double themselves every fifteen years.  In proportion to such increase will be the demand for manufactures” (235). If Africa is permitted to grow, Equiano posits, then Britain will see greater profit from trade in exports than it will from trafficking in people.  

In Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative, he explores the emotional consequences of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade on the enslaved and examines the economic motivations behind the cruelties of slavery.  The separation from his family that he endured is reflected in the digital archive image of the “woman and child on auction block”, highlighting how common an occurrence this was for those who were sold into slavery.  The apparent wealth of the slave owners in the image contrasts with the poverty of those being sold into the trade serves to emphasize how the power dynamic between slaves and their masters was created to increase profits for the white men at the expense of African families.

Works Cited:

“avarice, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, July 2018. Accessed 3 October 2018.

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of The Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, edited by Vincent Carretta, Penguin, 2003.

“Woman and child on auction block.” 19th Century. b16104370. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division. The New York Public Library Digital Collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6fb48e0e-0795-4ac1-e040-e00a18061701