'Rosa ordered to be flogged'

This wood engraving shows an artist's impression of a real example of the brutality of slavery, when a pregnant woman was beaten in Berbice, Guyana, in 1825. Rosa was picking coffee and finding it difficult, as she was heavily pregnant. The plantation manager thought the women were not working hard enough and ordered them all to be whipped by a Black overseer and sent back to work. Rosa was sent back to the fields and went into premature labour and gave birth to a stillborn (dead) child. This print and published accounts of the event were made into a short book in 1828 and presented to Parliament as part of the evidence for the campaign for the abolition of slavery.

Credit/copyright:   © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK

Issues:   A brutal image

Accession number:   National Maritime Museum, ZBA2555

Themes
Life on the Plantation
The Campaign for Abolition