Slave children

These portraits of emancipated slave children from New Orleans were created as part of a campaign to raise money for their education and, more broadly, to generate sympathy for the plight of slaves at a time when many in the north were growing fatigued of the bloodshed of the Civil War.

Published in Harper’s Weekly and distributed as individual cartes de visite, the images were startling because they presented slaves dressed in fine clean clothes, similar to what the children of a white middle class family might wear. But even more significant than the dress and staging of the children was the children themselves — several of them had pale skin and smooth hair, looking nothing like the typical image of a black slave.

Rebecca Huger, Rosa Downs and Charley Taylor, the offspring of white slave owners and black slaves, were chosen by the campaign, a joint effort between the Union military and several abolitionist organizations, precisely for their superficially white appearance. 

Rebecca in particular was photographed in numerous poses and settings, with props including stately balustrades, ornate mirrors and the Union flag itself.

The idea was to shock comfortable white audiences, to remind them that the evils of slavery could even envelop sweet, fair, “docile” children that looked much like their own. Of course, the campaign judged that its audience wouldn’t extend their concern to children who didn’t look like them.