Though American sculptor and artisti Hiram Powers created The Greek Slave as a representation of Turkish atrocities committed during the Greek War of Independence, it quickly came to represent commentary on slavery in the United States. In the late 1840s and later in the 1850s, the statue was shown in various U.S. cities to mixed reactions. In 1845 and 1848, it made appearances in London and was featured in the U.S. exhibit at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

In an 1853 letter addressed to poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who wrote a poem about the Greek Slave in 1853, Powers wrote that "a nude statue should be an unveiled soul and not a naked body." [CONTEXTUALIZE RELATING TO RECEPTION]