The Wedgwood anti-slavery medallion was an abolitionist symbol produced and distributed by British potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood in 1787 as a seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade . The medallion depicts a kneeling black man in chains with his hands raised to the heavens; it is inscribed with the phrase "Am I not a man and a brother?" [1] [2]
The figure was likely designed and modelled by Henry Webber and William Hackwood with Wedgwood's involvement. The medallion was produced as a jasperware cameo by Wedgwood's factory—the Etruria Works— and widely distributed in Britain and the United States. [3] These cameos were worn as pendants, inlaid in snuff boxes, and used to adorn bracelets and hair pins, rapidly becoming fashionable symbols of the British abolition movement. [1] [2] The medallion helped to further the abolitionist cause and is today accepted as "the most recognizable piece of antislavery paraphernalia the movement ever produced." [4]
On July 5, 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade resolved to develop a recognizable seal for their cause and charged founder Joseph Hooper with the commission. Hooper solicited the help of prominent British potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood. On October 16, 1787 a design by Henry Webber was presented to a committee of the Society. According to Mary Guyatt, and "it is fair to suggest that [Wedgwood] would have had some influence over the eventual design" given his personal involvement in the project. [1] Webber's design depicted a Black male slave in a kneeling posture accompanied by the motto "Am I not a man and a brother?" [4] The motif was adapted from a print design into sculpture, likely by William Hackwood. [3]
The enslaved man's kneeling position and raised hands are often understood as a reference to supplication, marking him as a Christian appealing to Heaven. Accompanied by an English plea, the depicted man communicates that he is a Westernized figure who shares both a language and faith with a white British or American audience. [5] [1]
Contemporary interpretations of the medallion emphasize that while the design recognizes the commonality of enslaved people, it simultaneously consigns them to a place of weakness and deference to white society. [5] [1] Mary Guyatt writes, [1]
Not only is the slave depicted in a weak posture, supplicating on bended knees and emasculated by his chains, but it is implicit that his appeal is addressed to white society as well as to Heaven. And since supplication demands that a hierarchy of power is established, the slave is clearly the submissive party, a non-threatening object whose purpose is to arouse pity in the hearts of potential converts to the abolitionists' cause. Indeed, Wedgwood, when suggesting that a woodcut of the same slave be used to introduce a Society pamphlet, described him as a "pathetic figure" which would "increase its effect somewhat."
By the end of 1787, Wedgwood began work to produce the design in cameo form at his pottery factory in Etruria, Staffordshire. [4] The quantity of medallions produced and number of variants of the symbol manufactured is not known. According to Mary Guyatt, "basing our figures on the level of demand indicated by the 15,050 copies of Clarkson's pamphlet, A Summary View of the Slave Trade, distributed to supporters in the Society's first fifteen months, it can be presumed that demand for the medallion was of a comparable scale." [1]
The medallions were likely distributed through the network of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Wedgwood sent parcels of cameos to Thomas Clarkson as well as to Benjamin Franklin in the United States. Historians generally accept that Wedgwood himself financed the cost of production and distribution; cameos of a similar size were commercially sold for three guineas each (£3/-3, equivalent to £506in 2023). [1] [3]
Wedgwood's anti-slavery cameos were eventually used to adorn a variety of items including snuff boxes, shoe buckles, bracelets, and hair pins which were commercially available in Britain and the United States. These items were purchased by hundreds of movement supporters—many of them middle-class women—who contributed to the increasing fashionability of the abolition movement. [4]
In the 1828 a modified version of the medallion appeared featuring a kneeling woman slave and the phrase "Am I not a woman and a sister." This version was intended to specifically bring attention to the plight of enslaved women. [6] George Bourne's 1837 Slavery Illustrated in Its Effects upon Woman and Domestic Society features the female variation of the symbol on its frontispiece. [7]
The American abolitionist newspaper The Liberator featured the kneeling slave figure in its nameplate, likely designed by Hammatt Billings. [8] [9]
African American men participating in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike carried posters reading "I AM A MAN"—a slogan that has often been traced to the Wedgwood medallion. As Cecelia M. Hartsell writes, "Am I Not a Man and A Brother" was no longer a question, as it had been in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—it was a declaration." [10]
Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the industrialisation of the manufacture of European pottery.
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate slaves around the world.
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this society, who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown, also a freedman, also often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had 1,350 local chapters with around 250,000 members.
Thomas Clarkson was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which ended British trade in slaves.
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. Passed by Earl Grey's reforming administration, it expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon, and Saint Helena. The Act came into force on 1 August 1834, and was repealed in 1998 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
The Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, founded in 1823 and known as the London Anti-Slavery Society during 1838 before ceasing to exist in that year, was commonly referred to as the Anti-Slavery Society.
The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, also known as the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and sometimes referred to as the Abolition Society or Anti-Slavery Society, was a British abolitionist group formed on 22 May 1787. The objective of abolishing the slave trade was achieved in 1807. The abolition of slavery in all British colonies followed in 1833.
The Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, played a major role in the abolition movement against slavery in both the United Kingdom and in the United States. Quakers were among the first white people to denounce slavery in the American colonies and Europe, and the Society of Friends became the first organization to take a collective stand against both slavery and the slave trade, later spearheading the international and ecumenical campaigns against slavery.
Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was an American poet and writer from Pennsylvania and Michigan. She became the first female writer in the United States to make the abolition of slavery her principal theme.
The first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women was held in New York City on May 9–12, 1837, to discuss the American abolition movement. This gathering represented the first time that women from such a broad geographic area met with the common purpose of promoting the anti-slavery cause among women, and it also was likely the first major convention where women discussed women's rights. Some prominent women went on to be vocal members of the Women's Suffrage Movement, including Lucretia Mott, the Grimké sisters, and Lydia Maria Child. After the first convention in 1837, there were also conventions in 1838 and 1839
The Liberty Party was an abolitionist political party in the United States before the American Civil War. The party experienced its greatest activity during the 1840s, while remnants persisted as late as 1860. It supported James G. Birney in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844. Others who attained prominence as leaders of the Liberty Party included Gerrit Smith, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Highland Garnet, Henry Bibb, and William Goodell. They attempted to work within the federal system created by the United States Constitution to diminish the political influence of the Slave Power and advance the cause of universal emancipation and an integrated, egalitarian society.
The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (1833–1840) was an abolitionist, interracial organization in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. "During its brief history ... it orchestrated three national women's conventions, organized a multistate petition campaign, sued southerners who brought slaves into Boston, and sponsored elaborate, profitable fundraisers."
I Am a Man is a declaration of civil rights and workers’ rights, often used as a declaration of independence against oppression and against exploitation. The phrase was most notably used among striking union worker advocates and the Civil Rights Movement at the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968, with "I Am a Man!" signs used to argue for respect and adequate pay.
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade. It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas.
William Hackwood was a modeller for Wedgwood from 1769 until 1832. He began work in the Etruria factory as an "ingenious boy", in Josiah Wedgwood's phrase, where he was "... of the greatest value and consequence in finishing fine small work." In time, he became head of ornamental art for the firm. He modelled many of Wedgwood's 18th-century portrait medallions, including those of Wedgwood himself, George III, and Queen Charlotte. His portraits of David Garrick and Shakespeare were signed but most were not. His work for the 18th-century abolitionist movement, Am I Not a Man and a Brother, perhaps to a design by Wedgwood himself, was widely distributed by the anti-slavery movement.
James Cropper (1773–1840) was an English businessman and philanthropist, known as an abolitionist who made a major contribution to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833.
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves is a non-fiction book by Adam Hochschild that was first published by Houghton Mifflin on January 7, 2005. The book is a narrative history of the late 18th- and early 19th-century anti-slavery movement in the British Empire. The story centers around a group of British abolitionist campaigners and traces their campaign from its beginnings with Somerset v Stewart in 1772 until full emancipation for all British slaves was legally granted in 1838. The book looks at the setbacks the abolitionists faced as well as the campaign tactics they used, and explains how they were ultimately able to end the practice of slavery in Britain.
Sarah Wedgwood (1776–1856) was an English abolitionist and charity administrator.
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