William Henry Brooke, Preparatory Watercolor for “Slaves Shipping Cotton by Torch-Light” (1842)

This rare preparatory drawing by William Henry Brooke served as the foundation for an early published visual critique of slavery in the United States. Created for James Silk Buckingham’s The Slave States of America (London, 1842), the image records forced labor along the Alabama River with emotional restraint and historical clarity.

Buckingham’s account helped shape British public understanding of American slavery and the growing abolitionist movement. As a primary visual document, the drawing offers a contemporaneous perspective on a system that caused immense harm and injustice.

• Medium: Pen, ink, and watercolor wash, heightened in white, on paper
• Date: 1842
• Sheet size: 8 3/4 × 10 3/4 in
• Framed: 16 × 18 in