From: Andrea Pawlowski
Date: 3/27/00
Time: 10:45:42 PM
Remote Name: 155.247.156.224
Andrea Pawlowski March 27, 2000 Primary Source Assignment–Week Ten The two questions that I chose to answer were "What emotions did those responsible want to evoke from their fellow Americans, both northern and southern?" and "How are slaves portrayed in these illusions? What effect has slavery had on them?" Both of these questions dealt with the illustrations from an anti-slavery almanac in 1840. I found these pictures very disturbing but quite effective. The emotions that the anti-slavery publishers wanted to evoke were ones of rage and anger, so that people would fight back. They wanted the people to realize that some people were not being treated equally, in fact they were not even treated like people. In the south, people were more aware of the issues with slavery so they wanted to make the northern people as aware. The illustrations specifically show that whites were treated as superior. The publishers wanted to show this because it added to the idea of in-equality and un-fairness. The slaves were portrayed as non-human. They were beaten and looked down upon as if they were some sort of aliens. In the illusion titled "Cutting-up a slave in Kentucky", white men were shown cutting-up a black man who was tied down to a board, left helpless. It depicts the act of cutting an animal for food, with the big butcher knife being held up in the air ready to just "chop away". This is a very inhumane act and shows the harsh treatment slaves received. In the illusion where the mothers were shown working in the fields with their children, a white man held a whip in the air. He used this as a threat to them and if they did not do their work properly he would beat them or their children. The effect that slavery had on them was very negative. They were treated and tormented so bad that they wanted to give up. Slavery could not make them feel anyway other than un-equal to white people. The effect that slavery had was both mental and physical. Mentally they suffered and physically they were beaten. These illusions, although harsh depicted the truth of that time period.