I found these photos several years ago and found them quite disturbing and painful to view. Years later and after much additional research, I was drawn to them. Slave cotton production increased fivefold from 1810 to 1860; the photos following illustrate why there was a fivefold increase in cotton picking during that time.
“Brown. Fugitive Slave,” is an article published in his newsletter Africultures is an evocation of runaways through the eyes of Fabrice Monteiro. An article that is timely to commemorate the 163 the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Guadeloupe, 27 May 2011.
“Maroon” is a term borrowed from the Spanish “cimarron,” meaning “living on the peaks.” It comes from a word “Arawak” defining domestic animals returned to the wild, and by extension, runaway slaves. The “Maroon” was a terrible threat to the colonial system, they were likely to provoke a civil war at any time. Fugitive slaves were monitored continuously and the sentences at the slightest deviation were particularly severe, they had to make an impression.”
“Slaves who tried to escape suffering the punishment described by the law then they were made to wear a heavy iron necklace with long stems, which had the function to hang in the brush and hamper any escape. In the same spirit, they existed in shackles bells, can hear every movement of the slave. The slave who dared to speak a bit to his master suffered the punishment of the Iron Mask. Similarly, during the harvest of sugarcane, were put in iron masks to hungry and thirsty slaves to prevent them from tasting or eating the cane.”
Continue with gallery @ http://usslave.blogspot.com/
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