Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law

Published in 1850, this print protested the passage of the new Fugitive Slave Law. The violent scene it depicted was a warning that the federal law would have dire consequences for African Americans, whether enslaved or free; implicate all Americans in its enforcement; and extend the power of pro-slavery interests into the free states.
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Who would make a picture like this?

Creator

Theodor Kaufmann (1814-1896).

Born in Germany, Theodor Kaufmann studied painting before immigrating to the United States after fighting in the 1848 uprising in Dresden. Like many 1848 immigrants, Kaufmann joined the anti-slavery cause, upholding the ideals of liberty, democracy, and national unity for which he previously fought. Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law was among his earliest works in the U.S. In the 1850s he also taught (future political cartoonist Thomas Nast was one of his students). Kaufmann fought in the Civil War, serving first in the Navy and then under radical Union Army General John C. Fremont. After the war, he resided in Boston and Washington, D.C. Fellow 1848er and publisher Louis Prang made prints of some of Kaufmann's more popular pieces, including his portrait of the African-American senator from Mississippi during Reconstruction, Hiram Revels. Kaufmann died in New York City in 1896.

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When and why was this picture made?

Date

1850

Historical Context

After a crisis sparked by California’s application for admission as a free state, the delicate balance between free and slave states in the U.S. Congress was re-established with the Compromise of 1850. California was admitted as a free state and the slave trade in Washington, D.C. was ended, while slavery was permitted in the new territories of New Mexico and Utah. In addition, as part of the compromise, pro-slavery forces were awarded with a new Fugitive Slaw Law. The law was aimed at the activities of white and black anti-slavery activists that had long assisted African Americans fleeing slavery, especially via the Underground Railroad network. It denied a jury trial to anyone accused of being a fugitive slave, allowed U.S. marshals to pursue slaves into free states, and authorized the federal government to prosecute northern whites who shielded runaways. Feeling implicated in the enforcement of slavery, which bounty hunters further exploited by seizing free blacks as escaped slaves, many Americans saw the new law as an extension of the power of pro-slavery interests into the North.

Visual Culture Context

Abolitionists viewed the rapidly expanding visual culture of the antebellum period as a resource in the fight against slavery. Beginning with the adoption of Josiah Wedgwood’s 1787 seal of the British Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade—showing a kneeling slave under the slogan, “Am I not a man and a brother?”—American anti-slavery activists used a range of images and consumer products to spread their message and raise funds. Decorative jewelry, tea sets, illustrated pamphlets, and particularly inexpensive prints depicted a system that was otherwise invisible to many Americans. “[W]e regard anti-slavery prints as powerful auxiliaries in the cause of emancipation,” wrote antislavery activist Sarah Grimké in 1837, “and recommend that these ‘pictorial representations’ be multiplied a hundred fold; so that the speechless agony of the fettered slave may unceasingly appeal to the heart of the patriotic, the philanthropic, and the Christian.” But anti-slavery prints were countered by an even greater number of pro-slavery images, often aimed at rousing anger against northern free blacks by depicting them as brutes or buffoons and Abolition as a plot to undermine the status of whites via racial “amalgamation” (interracial sex).

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How and where did people see this picture?

Publisher

Hoff & Bloede.

The firm's shop was located at 26 Spruce Street in New York, near City Hall. Henry Hoff was active as a publisher of lithographs in New York from 1850 to 1853; Bloede does not appear in any business directory. Both men may have been German immigrants. In addition to Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law, Hoff & Bloede published a series of twenty lithographs of New York scenes (after views by C. Autenrieth, John Bornet, Augustus Fay, and Karl Gildemeister). No other Hoff & Bloede prints are known to exist.

Format

Lithograph
Invented in Germany in 1796, lithography is a process for cheaply publishing large editions of prints. To make a lithograph, the artist draws the image on a polished slab of limestone with a greasy medium such as crayon or liquid ink. Before printing, the stone is dampened with water and then inked with a roller. The ink is repelled by the dampened portions of the stone but sticks to the drawn areas. Paper is placed on the stone, which is passed through a printing press. The image, as in other printmaking processes, is transferred to the paper in reverse.

Original Viewing Context

Little is known about how political prints were distributed, viewed, and used. By 1850, prints were disseminated nationally through formal networks maintained by some print publishers such as the Kellogg firm in Hartford or Nathaniel Currier in New York. Since little is known about the publishers of this print, we cannot be sure how it was distributed. It is possible that this print was commissioned and distributed in New York and beyond by one of the anti-slavery societies. The retail selling price would have been between ten to twenty-five cents (the average annual income of a New York worker was $337).

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How can I learn more?

FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW / ABOLITIONISM

Print

  • James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, "A Federal Assault: African Americans and the Impact of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850," Chicago-Kent Law Review 60 (1993): 1179-97.
  • Steve Lubet, Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial (2010).
  • Ronald G. Walters, The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism after 1830 (1976).

Online

SEEING ABOLITION

Print

  • Phillip Lapansky, "Graphic Discord: Abolitionist and Antiabolitionist Images," in The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women's Political Culture in Antebellum America, ed. Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), pp. 201-30.
  • Maurie D. McInnis, Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), pp. 27-54.
  • Bernard F. Reilly, Jr., "The Art of the Antislavery Movement," in Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston, ed. Donald M. Jacobs (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 47-73.

Online

THEODOR KAUFMANN

Print

  • Peter C. Merrill, German Immigrant Artists in America. A Biographical Dictionary. Lanham, Md.: London: The Scarecrow Press, 1997.
  • A. E. Zucker, "Theodor Kaufmann, Forty-eighter Artist," American-German Review 17 (Oct. 1950): 17-24.

Online

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How can I teach with this picture?

1) Examine the overall print and its details (using the Zoom tool) and read the picture annotations. Ask students what they think is happening in the scene:

  • Why are the men in the foreground running?
  • Who is shooting at them?
  • Why are they shooting?
  • Where is the scene taking place?
  • What is the significance of the text printed on the lower left and right of the print?


2) Read the online resources about the Fugitive Slave Law listed under the "How Can I Learn More?" feature. Examine this print and then look at Practical Illustration of the Fugitive Slave Law. Consider both prints' overall depiction and details (using the Zoom and annotation tools). Ask students to compare the messages in the two prints:

  • What is being shown in each print?
  • How is the 1851 Practical Illustration of the Fugitive Slave Law similar to the 1850 Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law, and how is it different—in the story each tells and in the way each tells that story?
  • What is the point of view of each print?
  • Is it important that Practical Illustration of the Fugitive Slave Law may have been produced a year after Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law?

 
3) After examining this print, divide the class and assign each group to read a portion of the "Declaration of Sentiments of the Colored Citizens of Boston, on the Fugitive Slave Bill!!!" along with the document's annotations and other accompanying information. Ask the students to report on how they think the print and the Declaration supported as well as how they differed from one another. For example, in what ways does the print and the declaration depict runaway slaves as victims of the Fugitive Slave Law and what does each advocate as an appropriate response to the law?

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What other pictures or documents are like this?