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"Destruction of the Roehampton Estate," Adolphe Duperly (1833); Portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning from The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London,1889-90)

"Destruction of the Roehampton Estate," Adolphe Duperly (1833); Portrait of Elizabeth Barrett Browning from The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (London, 1889-90)

In the scope of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's (hereafter EBB) poetic ouevre, five poems can be identified as addressing, whether overtly or obliquely, the ongoing issue of slavery. Each piece marks a particular moment in EBB's ideological trajectory, moving from her juvenilia, represented in “The African” (early 1820s), to apprenticeship poems like "The Appeal" (1833), to her much-discussed mature works “The Runaway Slave of Pilgrim’s Point” (1848), “Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave” (1850), and “A Curse for a Nation” (1856). By contextualizing these particular pieces both within their respective historical moments and our own contemporary perspectives, this COVE edition seeks to explore the nuances of power relations inherent in ongoing issues of race, gender, and class, seen in both the dynamics inherent in EBB's positionality as a white woman descended from a plantation-owning family, writing about the plight of enslaved people, and the broader system of racial inequity that persists into the present.

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Hiram Powers's "The Greek Slave" (1866) | Gallery Image

This version of the Greek Slave differs from previous versions in one crucial way: the alteration of the woman's constraints. Though some scholars argue for ideological or historical motivations behind "swapping out the link chain associated with American slavery for more historically accurate rectangular manacles" (Miller 646), Powers explained the reason as a matter of… more

Posted by Emily Crider on

John Tenniel's "The Virginian Slave" (1851) | Gallery Image

On June 7, 1851, Punch, a satirical London-based magazine, published a series of critiques of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Though these various cartoons and written criticisms ranged from class disparities to the exportation of cultural and economic production, this image by John Tenniel,… more

Posted by Emily Crider on

Hiram Powers's "Greek Slave" (1846) | Gallery Image

Based on the original 1841-1843 model, this particular iteration of the statue was carved by Powers in 1846. Though the woman's figure and form would remain essentially the same in each successive version, this statue includes the smaller chain connecting the shackles around her wrists that would later be replaced by longer, thicker links that, in Powers's view, took less time and effort to… more

Posted by Emily Crider on

Plymouth (English Colony) | Place

The first Pilgrims, sailing from England on the Mayflower, landed in what would become Plymouth , Massachusetts, on December 22nd, 1620. The Plymouth colony was among the first permanent English settlements in North America, following Newfoundland, located in present-day Canada, and Jamestown, farther south in present-day Virginia. Though the colony would eventually merge with other…

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Sidmouth | Place

Sidmouth is a small village located on the southeast edge of England along the English Channel. Relatively unnoteworthy for much of its history, Sidmouth became one of many coastal resorts fashionable during the late 18th and 19th centuries, and it remains a popular tourist destination today.

Sidmouth, Devon, in the present day.

Posted by Emily Crider on

Barrett Hall | Place

Completed around 1809, Barrett Hall, located in Jamaica's St. James Parish, served as the primary residence of Richard Barrett, a representative in the Jamaican legislature and cousin of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's father, Edward Barrett Moulton-Barrett, until Richard Barrett's death in 1839. Barrett Hall, along with several other Barrett family estates, including Greenwood Great…

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Greenwood Great House | Place

Built during the 1780s near Montego Bay in Jamaica's St. James Parish by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cousin Richard Barrett, Greenwood Great House was one of three plantation houses owned by the Barrett family. Like the nearby Cinnamon Hill Great House, Greenwood was among the few on the island to be spared during the slave uprisings of 1831 (also called the Baptist War), a point often…

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Manuscript, Page 4 | Gallery Image

Page 4 of Richard Barrett's manuscript.
Accession #: n.d./137

Transcription: nose in all the African deformity of breadth gave him a fierce & forbid-
ding countenance: otherwise he was of stout make, & full four inches taller
than Austin. Copperbottom was [illegible] forty… more

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Manuscript, Page 3 | Gallery Image

Page 3 of Richard Barrett's manuscript.
Accession #: n.d./137

Transcription: fight. Davy was old, infirm, & by nature a coward. But Austin knew that
a witness would be useful should Copperbottom fall in the conflict. They
had not… more

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Manuscript, Page 2 | Gallery Image

Page 2 of Richard Barrett's manuscript.
Accession #: n.d./137

Transcription: and plantain walks, till at length, as of by universal consent, he was per-
mitted to take without question whatever he had a fancy to. One day he
made his appearance in the plantain walk of the estate to which Austin
was attached, & told the watchman Davy,… more

Posted by Emily Crider on

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