“White Slaves” was one of several pieces on the South printed in
Youth’s Companion as the Civil
War ended in 1865. Its theme was the “degrading” effects of slavery on
Southern culture—explored in several pieces the Companion printed
that year. As the piece offered its young readers information on one of
the shameful aspects of antebellum Southern society, it offers us a glimpse
of attitudes of the time. Editorial assumptions about the audience are
evident: the readers were not only Northern (a safe bet at the time this
piece was published), but white.
The engraving apparently was reworked from one
printed a year earlier in Harper’s
Weekly, of a large carte de visite available from the National
Freedman’s Relief Association; this kind of
recycling
of images was common in 19th-century American periodicals. However, the
figure on the left is an
amalgamation of the body of dark-skinned
Isaac White and the head of light-skinned Charles Taylor, also in the
original image; Isaac’s hand was lightened to match Charles’s skin tone. The
engraving is, in fact, fairly crude, especially when compared with the
original, highlighting that probably they were done by different people.
Unfortunately, Isaac’s name didn’t get changed in the process. The author
of the piece probably worked from the illustration, as the work refers to
Isaac’s “light complexion.”
Why was the figure changed? The focus of the piece is on the fact that
while it may not be possible to tell the difference between children of the
same father, Southern law made a very real distinction based on the status
of their mothers. The fact was the basis for a
story
by Augusta Moore printed in the Companion a month later. Perhaps
the editors of the Companion decided to emphasize the vagaries of
parentage by “including” one of the other light-skinned children in the
original image.
Individual cartes of the individuals could be bought from the National
Freedman’s Relief Association in 1864; several are
online at the
Library of Congress web site (loc.gov).
“White Slaves” (from Youth’s Companion, March 9, 1865; p. 38)
Isaac White. Rebecca Huger. Robert Whitehead. Rosina Downs.
WHITE SLAVES.
[Illustration on p. 37]
We offer our young friends to-day, the portraits of four youths, who
were formerly slaves, but who have been made free by the successes of our
army and navy in Louisiana. They lived in New Orleans, and are now probably
studying in the schools which Gen. Banks established in that city for the
education of the children of freedmen.
One of them, the tall figure in the background, is a full-blooded
negro. His name is Robert Whitehead. The boy, who is called Isaac White,
is of light complexion. The two girls are perfectly white, and are named
Rebecca Huger and Rosina Downs.
Let our friends not be surprised that these girls are white. They
are in fact as light colored, and we dare say, as good looking as most of
our young readers of their sex. And so it often is at the South. Large
numbers of the slaves are white. This indicates one of the evils, and the
great wickedness of slavery. The white slave children are not unfrequently
the children of their masters. Often a number of children will grow up
together in the same family. They play together as companions. They are
all as fair to look upon as you or I, and in the sight of God there is no
reason why there should be any difference between one and another. They are
brothers and sisters, for they have the same father. Yet a part of them are
slaves. Why? Because their mother was a slave. The others are free born,
for their mother was the wife of their father. The poor white children of
the slave mother are sold like brutes to the highest bidder, by their worse
than brute father, while their free born brothers and sisters, who are not
whiter than they in complexion, or purer in heart, inherit the father’s
wealth, and enjoy the blessings of that freedom which is the choicest
earthly gift from God to man. Thus slavery degrades and makes fiendish the
dearest relations and the purest instincts of humanity.