The Illustrated Slave: Empathy, Graphic Narrative, and the Visual Culture of the Transatlantic Abolition Movement, 1800–1852

328 Pages·2017·11.3 MB·English

by  Martha J. Cutter

the il lustrated sl ave

the il lustr ated
SLAVE
Empathy, Graphic Narrative,
and the Visual Culture of the Transatlantic
Abolition Movement, 1800–1852
Martha J. Cutter
the u niversity of ge orgia press
athens
A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication
This  publication is made possible in part through a grant from the
Hodge Foundation in memory of its founder, Sarah Mills Hodge, who devoted her life
to the relief and education of African Americans in Savannah, Georgia.
© 2017 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cutter, Martha J., author.
Title: The illustrated slave : empathy, graphic narrative, and the
visual of the transatlantic abolition movement, 1800–1852 /
Martha J. Cutter.
Description: Athens, Georgia : The University of Georgia Press, [2017]
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2016055420| isbn 9780820351162 (hardback : alk.
paper) | isbn 9780820351155 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Slaves—United States—Illustrations. | Slavery—
United States—Illustrations. | American literature—African
American authors—History and criticism. | American literature—
19th century—History and criticism. | Slavery in literature. |
Antislavery movements in literature.
Classification: lcc ps217. s55 c87 2017 | ddc 810.9/352625—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055420
contents
Acknowledgments
vii
Preface
xi
Introduction. Visualizing Slavery and Slave Torture
1
chapter one
Precursors: Picturing the Story of Slavery in Broadsides, Pamphlets,
and Early Illustrated Graphic Works about Slavery, 1793–1812
29
chapter t wo
“These Loathsome Pictures Shall Be Published”:
Reconfigurations of the Optical Regime of Transatlantic Slavery in
Amelia Opie’s The Black Man’s Lament (1826) and George Bourne’s
Picture of Slavery in the United States of America (1834)
66
chapter t hree
Entering and Exiting the Sensorium of Slave Torture:
A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery
(1837, 1838) and the Visual Culture of the Slave’s Body in the
Transatlantic Abolition Movement
108
chapter f our
Structuring a New Abolitionist Reading of Masculinity
and Femininity: The Graphic Narrative Systems of Lydia Maria Child’s
Joanna (1838) and Henry Bibb’s Narrative of the Life and Adventures of

Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself (1849)
137
chapter f ive
After Tom: Illustrated Books, Panoramas, and the Staging
of the African American Enslaved Body in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
and the Performance Work of Henry Box Brown (1849–1875)
175
Epilogue. The End of Empathy, or Slavery Revisited
via Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Artworks
224
Appendix. Hierarchical and Parallel Empathy
237
Notes
239

Bibliography
259
Index
281
acknowledgments
Most of the chapters in this book have been deftly read and commented on
by friends and colleagues at numerous universities. I list them in no particular
order and sincerely thank them for their care with my ideas. They are Augusta
Rohrbach, Sharon Harris, John Ernest, Alan Rice, Joycelyn Moody, Chris Vials,
Shawn Salvant, Kate Capshaw, Jerry Phillips, Cassandra Jackson, Michael Gill,
Kathy Knapp, Anna Mae Duane, Chris Clark, Jeffrey Ogbar, Patrick Hogan,
Fiona Vernal, and Jeannine De Lombard. Thanks as well to Alexis Boylan and
Shirley Samuels for feedback on both the manuscript and on the cover design. I
owe a particular debt of gratitude to Cathy Schlund-Vials, who read many of these
chapters in draft form and offered unstinting advice and praise; I cannot imagine a
better colleague and friend. I also thank the members of the UConn Humanities
Institute (UCHI) in 2014–2015, who heard many parts of this book and offered
feedback: Rachel L. Greenblatt, Joseph McAlhany, Fakhreddin Azimi, Frank
Costigliola, Fiona Somerset, Gordon Fraser, Christina Henderson, and Beata
Moskal. A special thanks to UCHI’s director, Michael Lynch, and associate direc-
tor, Brendan Kane, for feedback and the fellowship that allowed me to complete
this manuscript, and to the previous director, Sharon Harris, for help with my
UCHI application. I also express my gratitude to the anonymous readers from
the University of Georgia Press for revision suggestions and especially to Walter
Biggins for his enthusiasm about this project. Special thanks also go to Rebecca
Norton, production editor at the University of Georgia Press, for her incredible
patience, and to Kip Keller, freelance editor, for careful copyediting and man-
uscript suggestions. For help with archival research on Henry Box Brown and
feedback on the chapter about him, I thank the following people: Jeffrey Ruggles,
Rory Rennick, Heather Murray, Karolyn Smartz-Frost, Mary Chapman, Linda
Cobon, Guylaine Petrin, Michael Lynch, Brendan Kane, and librarians at Toronto
Public Library (especially Irena Lewycka). Thanks as well to Michelle Maloney-
Mangold for proofreading and research assistance, and to Rebecca Rumbo for
proofreading and intellectual feedback. Laura A. Wright came in at the last min-
ute to help with citation checking; I am extremely grateful for her care and dili-
gence. The interlibrary loan staff at the University of Connecticut went above and
beyond the call of duty in obtaining rare archival manuscripts and facilitating my

research, and librarians and archivists at the Library Company of Philadelphia,
vii
viii acknowledgments
the New-York Historical Society, the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester
(Massachusetts), the Archives of Ontario, and Toronto General Hospital were
also extremely helpful. A special debt is owed to David K. Frasier of the Lilly
Library for helping me obtain high-resolution JPEGs of Amelia Opie’s The Black
Man’s Lament. I also owe a huge thanks to Melanie Hepburn for assisting me in
the massive amount of paperwork required to pay permission fees and engage in
archival work.
I must also thank the University of Connecticut’s English Department for giv-
ing me a sabbatical in the spring of 2012 to work on this book, and Veronica
Makowsky for taking over my editorial duties at MELUS so that I could write
during this sabbatical. I deeply thank the chair of the English Department, Robert
Hasenfratz, for giving me release time from teaching while I completed the book.
At the University of Connecticut, I am especially grateful to the Africana Studies
Institute and Melina Pappademos, the Felberbaum Family Fund, FIRE (Fund for
Interdisciplinary Research), and the Office of the Vice President for Research, as
well as the Humanities Institute, for grants that helped pay for archival research
and other manuscript costs. I also thank the CLAS Book Support Committee for
subvention funding.
For permission to use images in this book and for providing TIFFs of images, I
thank Mike Caveney; Celia Caust-Ellenbogen and Swarthmore College; Timothy
Rohe and the Redwood Library and Athenaeum; the Houghton Library (Harvard
University); the Library Company of Philadelphia; the American Antiquarian
Society; the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; Yale
University; the Library of Congress; the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian
Institution; Wilmer Wilson IV and the Connersmith Gallery; Elliott Banfield
and the New York Sun; Glenn Ligon, Regen Projects, and the Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution; and Kara Walker, Scott Briscoe,
and Sikkema Jenkins & Co. An earlier version of chapter 3 was published in ESQ:
A Journal of the American Renaissance 60, no. 3 (2014): 371–411, copyright 2017 by
the Board of Regents of Washington State University, and I thank the editors and
readers for helpful feedback and permission to reprint. Brief excerpts of chapter 5
were published in Common-Place: The Journal of Early American Life 16, no. 1 (2015),
and I thank Anna Mae Duane and Walter Woodward for suggested revisions.
On a more personal note, I thank my parents for supporting my work as a
scholar all these many years. I thank all the students who have listened to me
discuss this work, especially those in my graduate seminar “Visual Rhetoric and
Social Change” in the fall of 2013. Last but certainly not least, I thank my partner,
Peter Linehan, who has listened to my ideas patiently for years now, cooked food
acknowledgments ix
and taken care of the dogs while I wrote, driven me back and forth to archives and
libraries across the United States and Canada, taken photographs for my research,
and never complained about any of this.
This book is dedicated to Terry Rowden and Cathy J. Schlund-Vials. Terry,
my great friend and colleague, has offered me invaluable feedback on my work
throughout my career—more, certainly, than I have ever given him. I also thank
my colleague and best friend Cathy Schlund-Vials, who has metaphorically held
my hand more times than I can count when I needed to have faith that this man-
uscript would ultimately be completed. The generous mind and spirit of these two
friends is an inspiration and a true gift for which I am eternally thankful.