?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000
WITH A FINE EXAMPLE OF THE NOTORIOUS SLAVE SHIP HOLD (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) PARLIAMENTARY REPORT. Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords Appointed to Consider the Best Means which Great Britain can Adopt for the Final Extinction of the African Slave Trade and a related report. 574; 249 pages. Large and detailed folding diagram (separated for framing) of the hold of the slave ship Brook, as presented in his Abstract of the Evidence in 1791 by William Wilberforce 22 x 16-1/4 inches; the plate of the African Station 19-1/2 x 24-1/2 inches; The Chart Prepared with a View to Shew the Present State of the Slave Trade 46 x 52 inches (one small short closed tear at the gutter; and the Map of the Coast of Brazil;, 17 x 39 inches; all maps hand tinted and in excellent condition. London: House of Lords, 1850
the second time that the notorious diagram of the hold of a slave ship was used in parliament to show the terrible cruelty of the african slave trade and the middle passage in particular. Even though the ban on the seizure of Africans was made illegal in 1807, the trade continued, providing the Spanish and the Portuguese with slaves well past the Emancipation of the West Indies. The diagram of the hold is the same one from 1791, later re-engraved for this printing. Portions of one piece of testimony in particular that shocked the staid members of Parliament: "Every slave, what ever his (or her) size might be was found to have only 5 feet 6 inches in length and 16 inches in breadth to lie in. The floor was covered in bodies, stowed or packed according to this allowance, the deck covered in human waste and blood. The men were chained two together by their hands and feet, also by means of ring bolts fastened to the deck. This was part of the evidence given by a slave ship's doctor in 1791, during William Wilberforce's presentation of the Abstract of the Evidence. This volume contains testimony by ship's officers, crewmen, and other first hand eye witnesses to the slave trade from the time of capture to the Middle Passage and onward to the coast of South America and the West Indies. An excellent source for research with exceptional maps and plates.
