In reality, the inhumanity was even worse: up to 609 people were imprisoned within the ship during its two-month journeys from the coast of Africa to the West Indies. The plans and sections diagram in painful detail how the slave ship Brookes was intended to stow its full capacity of 482 men (in chains), women, and children. Published by British abolitionists in April 1789, the broadsides of the ‘Description of a Slave Ship’ provided the most recognizable, shocking, and unforgettable of all images associated with the Atlantic slave trade. Although these important images do not record the ‘voices’ of the enslaved, they do represent essential eyewitness testimony to the cruel practices of enslavement through the depiction of a slave-trade ship’s cargo hold.ĭescription of a Slave Ship, 1789 (engraved). 1 Noting that a correct history is one that listens to many voices from the past, Shutack asked ‘is your school showing images such as Gordon’s scourged back, a slave ship hold, and an enslaved nurse holding her young master?’ The slave ship hold to which she refers is the ‘Description of a Slave Ship’, a powerful image produced as a broadside (a public poster) in London in 1789, as well as its many derivatives. Among them was the recommendation that parents, teachers, and concerned citizens should encourage their schools to ensure that the topic of slavery in American history is taught correctly. In a blog entry originally posted in 2017 and recently recirculated widely, Corinne Shutack advocated 75 specific constructive actions in support of racial justice. However, in retrospect, I do not believe that I was taught the history behind the image correctly – at least, not the whole history. Like many, I first saw this image in my childhood, and I have never forgotten it.
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