For this assignment, I created two posts on Omeka. The first one is called “The Representation of the Brig ‘Vigilante,'” and it is a picture depicting the amount of enslaved persons that can be packed onto a ship that brings them across the Middle Passage (http://omekahst251.jenniferandrella.com/items/show/25). The second is titled “Receipt for the sale of Jane, age 18, and her son, Henry, age 1, and all future children,” and it is a text document recording the sale of an enslaved mother and her son (http://omekahst251.jenniferandrella.com/items/show/27). I chose these two items because they stood out to me. Seeing the first image with such an incredible amount of people packed onto a boat, all close together and cramped- some even in chains- really had me in awe. The second was interesting to read because it shows the diction of people in the mid-1800s and how/what they recorded and deemed important. I guess it makes sense that there was a receipt for people in bondage since they were bought, but taking a step back and looking at it, it is ridiculous that a receipt should be linked to a human being, let alone the fact that people can be bought like property. I understand that that was the norm for that time, but it’s just ethically wrong; people deserve to be free and have rights. Everything that was done in that time is so inhumane to hear and learn about, especially considering the boat. People were taken from their families, treated incredibly poorly, put through harsh conditions, and sold into slavery against their will. It really makes me empathize with enslaved people because they didn’t get the chance to live their own lives and make their own decisions, which is very sad to think about. I wonder what the main purpose was for creating the image of the boat; was it made to scare people? Was it just to inform future historians about the harsh conditions that people in bondage went through?
FALL 2020
