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"Trait des Negres," an engraving from George Morland's Execrable Human Traffic, 1788.

"Trait des Negres,” an engraving from George Morland’s Execrable Human Traffic, 1788.

This image is an engraving made from the earliest recorded painting of a slave trading scene, George Morlands's Execrable Human Traffic (1788). The intention of the image was to bring to the public eye the inhumanity of the slave trade. In the foreground, a woman with a child clinging to her is being taken to a boat and a formidable African man is being subdued by two European men. The background depicts a variety of tiny images of slaves being rounded up into boats. The text on the print translates approximately as:

"What infamous deed of a merchant, who is not apparently a person. The other sells the property of nature.This vile trade is abolished by the National Convention of the 16th Pluvius, the Second year of the French Republic, one and indivisible."


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