Shows slaves at work in the processing of sugar. On the left (B) is the tank that receives the cane juice flowing from the mill where the sugar cane has been crushed and the juice extracted. In the center are the coppers (cauldrons) in which the sugar juice is boiled (C) with slaves moving the crystallized sugar from one to the other with giant ladles (D). On the lower right are the conical sugar pots into which the raw sugar will be placed and then taken to the curing house to drain out the molasses. A reversed version of this image is in M. Chambon, Le commerce de l'Amérique par Marseille (Avignon 1764) Vol. 1, plate IV (top), after p. 382), titled Sucrerie.

Shows slaves at work in two types of vertical roller sugar grinding mills: water (bottom) and horse (top). The illustration of the horse-powered mill seems to have been taken from an engraving that appeared earlier in Jean Baptiste Labat, Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amerique (Paris, 1722; see image reference NW0059 on this website).

Accompanies an article, Sugar Manufacture in Brazil, which discusses the application of novel machinery to the manufacture of sugar: the article describes this new machinery, introduced to Brazil in 1851 or 1852, and the illustration shows two black women . . . feeding the mill with canes, which others are bringing from a heap shown on the right . . . where they have been thrown from the carts.

Caption, Cotton-Packing (Long Staple)

Although published after the Civil War, this scene could have been witnessed during the later antebellum period. The illustration accompanies a long descriptive article on cotton production, Cotton, in the Coast and Upland Fields of South Carolina, by Jennie Haskell (pp. 567-574).

Although published after the Civil War, this scene could have been witnessed during the later antebellum period. The illustration accompanies a long descriptive article on cotton production, Cotton, in the Coast and Upland Fields of South Carolina, by Jennie Haskell (pp. 567-574).

Although published after the Civil War, this scene could have been witnessed during the later antebellum period. The illustration accompanies a long descriptive article on cotton production, Cotton, in the Coast and Upland Fields of South Carolina, by Jennie Haskell (pp. 567-574).

Captioned, After a day's picking.

Although published after the Civil War, this scene could have been witnessed during the later antebellum period. The illustration accompanies a long descriptive article on cotton production, Cotton, in the Coast and Upland Fields of South Carolina, by Jennie Haskell (pp. 567-574).

This image shows sugar cane trash being fed into the furnaces, enslaved people rolling hogsheads of rum, cattle carts hauling the hogsheads, white overseers/managers; in the background windmills used for grinding the cane. Little is known of William Clark although he was probably a manager or overseer of plantations in Antigua. The ten prints in the collection were based on his drawings, converted into prints by professional printmakers. All of the prints are shown and extensively described in T. Barringer, G. Forrester, and B. Martinez-Ruiz, Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 318-321.

"Rustic Economy: Cotton Culture and Cleaning" (caption translation). This image shows slaves working at various tasks in the production of cotton. The geographical area was not specified but presumably it is the French West Indies. Details on this illustration are given in Diderot, the section treating agriculture (p. 9). The same illustration was published in B. L. C. Wailes, Report on the Agriculture and Geology of Mississippi (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo, and Co., 1854), facing p. 141, but without giving Diderot as the original source. A reversed copy of the image was also published in M. Chambon, Le commerce de l'Amèrique par Marseille (Avignon, 1764) Vol. 2, plate VIII, after p. 6. A reversed version of this image also appears in Il Gazzettiere Americano (Livorno, 1763), vol. 2, facing p. 235, where the location is given as Martinique.

"Sugar Refinery" (caption translation). This engraving depicts the interior of a sugar curing house with a white man in the middle preparing a conical pot to store among the rows and columns of pots behind him. After the sugar is processed in the boiling house, the raw sugar (muscavado) was poured into the conical pots and the molasses drains into the jars below. Although a European is shown in this illustration, the job was commonly performed by enslaved people. This image is from an unidentified geographic area, but likely in the French Caribbean. Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert, with the aid of Quensay, Montesquieu, Voltaire, J. J. Rousseau, Turgot, and others edited this illustrated, 28 volume French encyclopedia published between 1751 and 1775. It played a major role in the intellectual preparation for the French Revolution.

Men and women at work; some carrying and feeding canes to vertical rollers; others boiling sugar.

Men and women slaves pressing, grating, and washing the manioc; a white overseer with a whip looks on. Kidder (p. 243) describes the scene as follows: The process of preparation . . . was first to boil [the roots], then remove the rind, after which the pieces were held by the hand in contact with a circular grater turned by water power. The pulverized material was then placed in sacks, several of which, thus filled, were constantly subject to the action of a screw-press for the expulsion of the poisonous liquid. The masses, thus solidified by pressure, were beaten fine in mortars. The substance was then transferred to open ovens, or concave plates, heated beneath, where it was constantly and rapidly stirred until quite dry. The ... farinha [flour] is found upon every Brazilian table, and forms a great variety of healthy and palatable dishes.

Although the scene depicted a post-emancipation scene, this image shows the labor of many thousands of people and a cotton gin immediately following the period of slavery. Willard W. Glazier (1841-1905) made a canoe voyage of 3,000 miles, from the head-waters to the mouth of the Mississippi in 1881.

"Sugar Cane; Sugar Plantation" (caption translation). This illustration shows the layout of a sugar plantation. Slave houses were on the left, and above them the mansion/great house. A water mill was in lower right with a cane field in the center. This image does not appear in the London edition of the American Gazetteer and seems to have been included especially for the Italian publication. This is a reverse image from the original source for this illustration: Denis Diderot, Encyclopedie . . . (Paris, 1762), vol. 1, plate 1. See also image sucrerie_plate1.

This title page to the Atlas depicts scenes of an unidentified Caribbean island with ships in the bay. In the foreground, enslaved people were illustrated transporting sugar hogsheads.

Bridgens described how "the hoe is the only tool used for making cane holes. The laborer also carries a cutlass and crook, the latter to assist in the removal of dead leaves from the cane plant; on the hoe handle, he also carries a sort of sandal worn when in the woods or to protect the feet from thorns in newly cultivated land. On his right arm there is a too-too in a coarse netting of linen, termed by the Negroes tie-tie; the too-too is a calabash canteen for holding water." A sculptor, furniture designer and architect, Richard Bridgens was born in England in 1785, but in 1826 he moved to Trinidad where his wife had inherited a sugar plantation, St. Clair. Although he occasionally returned to England, he ultimately lived in Trinidad for seven years and died in Port of Spain in 1846. Bridgens' book contains 27 plates, thirteen of which are shown on this website. The plates were based on drawings made from life and were done between 1825, when Bridgens arrived in Trinidad, and 1836, when his book was published. Although his work is undated, the title page of a copy held by the Beinecke Rare Book Room at Yale University has a front cover with a publication date of 1836, the date usually assigned to this work by major libraries whose copies lack a title page. Bridgens' racist perspectives on enslaved Africans and his defense of slavery are discussed in T. Barringer, G. Forrester, and B. Martinez-Ruiz, Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 460-461. Bridgens' life is discussed extensively along with discussion of his drawings and presentation of many details on slave life in Trinidad in Judy Raymond, The Colour of Shadows: Images of Caribbean Slavery (Coconut Beach, Florida: Caribbean Studies Press, 2016). Raymond's book, which is an essential source for any study of Bridgens, also includes a number of unpublished sketches of Trinidadian slave life. See also Brian Austen, Richard Hicks Bridgens (Oxford Art Online/Grove Art Online).

According to Bridgens, the sugar juice "is conveyed in pipes from the mill to the boiling house. . . Here it is converted through a succession of coppers. At each copper a Negro is placed to take off the scum as it rises, and when the temperature of that vessel has had its full effect, to remove it with a ladle into the next." Note the overseer/manager in the center foreground. A sculptor, furniture designer and architect, Richard Bridgens was born in England in 1785, but in 1826 he moved to Trinidad where his wife had inherited a sugar plantation, St. Clair. Although he occasionally returned to England, he ultimately lived in Trinidad for seven years and died in Port of Spain in 1846. Bridgens' book contains 27 plates, thirteen of which are shown on this website. The plates were based on drawings made from life and were done between 1825, when Bridgens arrived in Trinidad, and 1836, when his book was published. Although his work is undated, the title page of a copy held by the Beinecke Rare Book Room at Yale University has a front cover with a publication date of 1836, the date usually assigned to this work by major libraries whose copies lack a title page. Bridgens' racist perspectives on enslaved Africans and his defense of slavery are discussed in T. Barringer, G. Forrester, and B. Martinez-Ruiz, Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 460-461. Bridgens' life is discussed extensively along with discussion of his drawings and presentation of many details on slave life in Trinidad in Judy Raymond, The Colour of Shadows: Images of Caribbean Slavery (Coconut Beach, Florida: Caribbean Studies Press, 2016). Raymond's book, which is an essential source for any study of Bridgens, also includes a number of unpublished sketches of Trinidadian slave life. See also Brian Austen, Richard Hicks Bridgens (Oxford Art Online/Grove Art Online).

This sketch was taken from the estate of St. Clair farm. Bridgens depicted "ox carts, the boiling house (left) and mule-powered mill with vertical rollers (right). A Negress, called the 'feeder' . . . introduces the fresh canes between the two first rollers. A sculptor, furniture designer and architect, Richard Bridgens was born in England in 1785, but in 1826 he moved to Trinidad where his wife had inherited a sugar plantation, St. Clair. Although he occasionally returned to England, he ultimately lived in Trinidad for seven years and died in Port of Spain in 1846. Bridgens' book contains 27 plates, thirteen of which are shown on this website. The plates were based on drawings made from life and were done between 1825, when Bridgens arrived in Trinidad, and 1836, when his book was published. Although his work is undated, the title page of a copy held by the Beinecke Rare Book Room at Yale University has a front cover with a publication date of 1836, the date usually assigned to this work by major libraries whose copies lack a title page. Bridgens' racist perspectives on enslaved Africans and his defense of slavery are discussed in T. Barringer, G. Forrester, and B. Martinez-Ruiz, Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 460-461. Bridgens' life is discussed extensively along with discussion of his drawings and presentation of many details on slave life in Trinidad in Judy Raymond, The Colour of Shadows: Images of Caribbean Slavery (Coconut Beach, Florida: Caribbean Studies Press, 2016). Raymond's book, which is an essential source for any study of Bridgens, also includes a number of unpublished sketches of Trinidadian slave life. See also Brian Austen, Richard Hicks Bridgens (Oxford Art Online/Grove Art Online).

This engraving shows a carter with an ox-cart hauling bales of cotton and field laborers with baskets of picked cotton. Blake does not identify the source for this illustration, but it seems to be one that originally appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (vol. 8, p. 460). See image reference NW0076 on this website.

Black men and women engaged in various phases of preparing manioc or cassava. This illustration is not described in Blake, but is undoubtedly derived from Johann Moritz Rugendas, Voyage Pittoresque dans le Bresil (Paris, 1835). See image reference NW0294 on this website.

This watercolour shows plantation sugar fields with slaves in the center cutting and loading the cane onto ox-carts for transport to the sugar mill. William Berryman was an English artist who lived in Jamaica for eight years between 1808 and 1816. He produced about 300 pencil drawings and watercolour of people, landscape, settlements, and flora in the island's southern parishes and the general region surrounding Kingston. Several other Berryman works are reproduced in T. Barringer, G. Forrester, B. Martinez-Ruiz, et al., Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press, 2007).

This sketch shows two men on a raised structure or scaffold filling a tall bag with cotton. William Berryman was an English artist who lived in Jamaica for eight years between 1808 and 1816. He produced about 300 pencil drawings and watercolour of people, landscape, settlements, and flora in the island's southern parishes and the general region surrounding Kingston. Several other Berryman works are reproduced in T. Barringer, G. Forrester, B. Martinez-Ruiz, et al., Art and Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and his Worlds (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press, 2007).

"Slaves going to work" (caption translation). This engraving shows men and women in their work clothes, carrying long handled spades and hoes. A woman on the left is carrying a wood tray and basket on her head and smoking a pipe. In the background, slaves are cultivating a field under a slave driver's supervision. Pierre Jacques Benoit (1782-1854) was a Belgian artist, who visited the Dutch colony of Suriname on his own initiative for several months in 1831. He stayed in Paramaribo, but visited plantations, maroon communities and indigenous villages inland.