The Negros Complaint

Sale 1998 - Lot 50

Price Realized: $ 4,370

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500

The Negro's Complaint. Manuscript poem in 4 stanzas, in the center of which is a finely drawn pen-and-ink and wash depiction of the familiar kneeling slave introduced by Wedgwood in 1787, on a small 4to sheet; framed. Probably England, circa 1840

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Nicely calligraphed and executed. The poem is written in the first person and begins, "Forc'd from home and all its pleasures / Afric's coast I left forlorn / To increase a stranger's treasures ' o'er the raging billows borne / Men from England bought and sold me / Paid my price in paltry gold / But tho: slave they have enroll'd me / Minds are never to be sold."