Description

Engraving shows instruments of restraint and torture used during the Middle Passage. From top to bottom, it includes: iron hand-cuffs, iron shackles, a thumb press, and a speculum oris, an instrument originally used to open the mouths of lock-jaw patients. On slave-ships, it was used to force-feed slaves who refused to eat. The bottom diagram shows a cabin space that is 3 feet, 3 inches high; it shows manner in which enslaved Africans were forced to sit during the passage.; Illustration in Lydia Childs's An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans (New York: Published by John S. Taylor, 1836), p. 21.; Opposite page includes the following text: "The engraving on the next page will help to give a vivid idea of the Elysium enjoyed by negroes, during the Middle Passage. Fig A represents the iron hand-cuffs, which fasten the slaves together by means of a little bolt with a padlock. B represents the iron shackles by which the ancle [sic] of one is made fast to the ancle [sic] of his next companion. Yet even thus secured, they do often jump into the sea, and wave their hands in triumph at the approach of death. E is a thumb-screw. The thumbs are put into two rounds [sic] holes at the top; by turning a key a bar rises from C to D by means of a screw; and the pressure becomes very painful. By turning it further, the blood is made to start; and by taking...

Record Contributed By

The Library Company of Philadelphia

Record Harvested From

PA Digital