The Africans of the Slave Bark "Wildfire"

Description

This widely reproduced engraving shows the emaciated survivors of the Middle Passage on the top deck of the American slave ship Wildfire, owned by New Yorkers. Captured in April 1860 by the U.S. Navy within sight of Cuba (its presumed destination), the Wildfire had violated the U.S. law, enacted in 1808, prohibiting the importation of slaves from overseas. Taken on board at the Congo River at the Loango Coast and Kwanza North regions, the 510 captive Africans who had survived the Atlantic crossing (90 had perished during the voyage) were taken to Key West, Florida. A correspondent for Harper's Weekly boarded the ship soon after it anchored and wrote a very vivid and lengthy account of the captives and their physical condition. His description started with the observation that all of the Africans he saw on the deck "were in a state of entire nudity, in a sitting or squatting posture. . . They sat very close together, mostly on either side. . . About fifty of them were full-grown young men, and about four hundred were boys aged from ten to sixteen years. When he descended into the deck below, he saw sixty or seventy women and young girls, in nature's dress, some sitting on the floor and others on the lockers, and some sick ones lying in the berths. Four or five of them were a good deal tattooed on the back and arms, and. . . three had an arm branded with the figure '7' which we suppose is the merchant's mark" (p. 344). During the Atlantic slave trade, most captive Africans were transported across the Atlantic in a state of complete nudity. See Jerome Handler, The Middle Passage and the Material Culture of Captive Africans, Slavery and Abolition, vol. 30 (2009): p. 1-26. See also image HW007.

Source

Engraved from daguerreotype, published in Harper's Weekly (June 2, 1860), vol. 4, p. 344

Language

English

Rights

Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.

Identifier

E027

Spatial Coverage

Atlantic

Item sets

Slave Ships & the Atlantic Crossing (Middle Passage)

Citation

"The Africans of the Slave Bark "Wildfire"", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed September 30, 2023, http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/2575
This widely reproduced engraving shows the emaciated survivors of the Middle Passage on the top deck of the American slave ship Wildfire, owned by New Yorkers. Captured in April 1860 by the U.S. Navy within sight of Cuba (its presumed destination), the Wildfire had violated the U.S. law, enacted in 1808, prohibiting the importation of slaves from overseas. Taken on board at the Congo River at the Loango Coast and Kwanza North regions, the 510 captive Africans who had survived the Atlantic crossing (90 had perished during the voyage) were taken to Key West, Florida. A correspondent for Harper's Weekly boarded the ship soon after it anchored and wrote a very vivid and lengthy account of the captives and their physical condition. His description started with the observation that all of the Africans he saw on the deck "were in a state of entire nudity, in a sitting or squatting posture. . . They sat very close together, mostly on either side. . . About fifty of them were full-grown young men, and about four hundred were boys aged from ten to sixteen years. When he descended into the deck below, he saw sixty or seventy women and young girls, in nature's dress, some sitting on the floor and others on the lockers, and some sick ones lying in the berths. Four or five of them were a good deal tattooed on the back and arms, and. . . three had an arm branded with the figure '7' which we suppose is the merchant's mark" (p. 344). During the Atlantic slave trade, most captive Africans were transported across the Atlantic in a state of complete nudity. See Jerome Handler, The Middle Passage and the Material Culture of Captive Africans, Slavery and Abolition, vol. 30 (2009): p. 1-26. See also image HW007.
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