Representations of slaves packed into vessels played an important role in illustrating the horrors of the middle passage, and the evils of the slave trade. The Illustrated London News, 26 August 1848. Courtesy of University of Missouri Libraries.

Sketches of slave ships were a popular way of publicizing the horrors of the slave trade and galvanizing support for the suppression campaign. The following image provides a bird’s eye view of the hold of a slave ship, showing how slaves were chained to the deck. The Illustrated London News, 26 August 1848. Courtesy of […]

The Congo River was always an important point of slave embarkation. In the nineteenth century, however, its importance as a source of slaves further increased as the legislation to suppress the traffic initially focused on the North Atlantic. The following image shows a British man of war preparing to rescue Africans who were previously on […]

Encounters of naval vessels with slave ships on the coast of Africa were frequent and provided exciting reading material for anti-slavery audiences. The following image shows an example of such encounters. Here a boat from British man of war engages with a slave felucca, a smal slave ship on the coast of Africa. The Illustrated […]