Comments
Barracoon with thatched roof; captured slaves inside, guards outside; several persons being whipped. The Illustrated London News describes a raid by the British Navy in February 1849 on Spanish slave trading stations along the Gallinas [Kerefe] river in Sierra Leone; three factories were destroyed. The engraving shows "a barracoon at the back of one of the factories in the creek; here flogging is an hourly occupation, and the sufferers frequently expire under the lash. The slaves are chained by the neck and legs; and except when marched from one barracoon to another, on chance of shipment, they know no change for a year or two." For details on this raid, see also W. E. F. Ward, The Royal Navy and the Slavers (New York, 1970), pp. 182-85. A colored version of this illustration (which crops off part of the figure being whipped and the two seated on the ground [on the right]) was done by an anonymous 19th cent. artist; it is located in Bureau du Patrimoine du Conseil Regional de la Martinique, and was published in the exhibition catalog, Les Anneaux de la Memoire: Nantes-Europe-Afriques-Ameriques, Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne. Nantes, France, Dec. 1992-Feb. 1994.