Allegory of Commerce

The purchase of slaves in Africa was, as we have seen, infrequently depicted in the eighteenth century. But the acquisition of slaves was only the initial stage of the process of enslavement. From Africa the slaves were transported in large numbers in ships adapted for the purpose to colonies—the dreaded Middle Passage—and if they survived the journey, they were put to work on...

During the closing decades of the eighteenth century, years of revolutionary convulsions on both sides of the Atlantic, not only in politics but in all walks of life and thought and art as well, the ways in which blacks were regarded underwent profound and far-reaching changes ...