Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade by Maurie D. McInnis (review)

In Slaves Waiting for Sale Maurie D. McInnis examines “the visual and material culture of the American slave trade” focusing on artists’ depictions of the domestic slave trade found in a variety of places (230, note 14). Some of the work analyzed appeared in major installations such as the Royal Academy of the Arts’ National Gallery in London while others were tucked away in novels, history books, and nineteenth-century newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets. Centering the discussion around the work of artist Eyre Crowe, McInnis traces his journey to the United States with William Makepeace Thackerary, the famous author and satirist. Thackerary brought Crowe with him on a six-month speaking tour, which began in October 1852. Although Crowe served as Thackerary’s secretary, the two had been good friends for years. During their brief travels in the United States, they witnessed slavery and the domestic traffic in human chattels. Slave auctions in particular, literally transformed Crowe’s focus and served as the “thematic watershed for his art” (2).

The book traces this tour and addresses several works of art that will be familiar to many historians and art historians. Some of these images fill the pages of William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator (such as the various mastheads) and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, while others represent a handful of abolitionist pamphlets published by various anti-slavery societies. McInnis shows that anti-slavery supporters utilized the work of several artists because they understood quite well that images of slavery and the slave trade “allowed viewers to imagine in bodily terms just what” it meant for a human being to be commodified (29).

McInnis does a fine job contextualizing the art and placing it in an historical context. Relying upon training as an art historian, the author provides detailed analysis of popular images with attention given to the medium, facial expressions, body language, clothing, and provenance of more than thirty pieces. The author also analyzes maps, architecture, people, and events to tell the rich history of slave sales in the United States. Crowe’s impressions aside, readers will appreciate McInnis’ descriptions of antebellum Richmond in chapter 3. The author maps businesses, churches, hotels, jails, foundries, and other key buildings. In chapter 4, McInnis chronicles the lives of slave traders and dealers such as John Armfield, Hector Davis, R.H. Dickinson, Isaac Franklin, C.B. Hill, Robert Lumpkin, and Silas Omohundro. Much of the material in this chapter will be familiar to scholars of the domestic slave trade and those who have read the work of Walter Johnson, Steven Deyle, Robert Gudmestead and others. However, McInnis’ examination and descriptions of slave jails/pens is quite useful because she includes receipts and expenses for the daily operations of these facilities in similar ways as Michael Tadman did in Speculators and Slaves.

This work could benefit from more critical analysis of historians’ ideas about various subjects such as abolition, enslaved narratives, and slave clothing. For example, the author notes that the abolition movement was not effective, however, supports this claim on the number of northerners involved in anti-slavery societies. From the enslaved perspective, one could argue that thousands of slaves received their freedom through the work of abolitionists despite the number of northerners involved with the movement. Such statements are only followed by single-author citations leaving the reader to question whether or not other sources were considered.

In chapter 5, “Dressed for Sale” the author leads with an important story of William Turnage, the enslaved narrative recently discovered by Historian David Blight in Slaves No More. McInnis notes that Turnage and “other slaves” purchased “new clothing and shoes that they were expected to wear for sale” (116). At this moment, readers may think the remainder of the chapter will examine the well-dressed enslaved people such as women clad in colorful dresses and men adorned in blazers, coats, and vests, evident in the color plates...