Slave traffic

This painting refers to the story of Inkle and Yarico, first published in 1711. In the story, the ‘native’ woman, Yarico, rescues an Englishman Mr Inkle after a shipwreck. They fall in love and live together in the woods, before a passing ship brings them to Barbados. The picture shows Inkle at the moment that he sells Yarico into slavery. She has just told him that she is pregnant with his child, in the hope that this will make him change his mind. Inkle asks the trader for more money instead. Sentimental stories like this often exposed the cruelties of slavery, and they were used in the growing art and literature of the abolition movement. It is signed by the artist and dated.

Object Details

ID: PAG9696
Collection: Fine art
Type: Drawing
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Hutchinson, S.
Date made: 1793
Exhibition: The Atlantic: Slavery, Trade, Empire; Enslavement and Resistance
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Image: 347 mm x 470 mm;Mount: 453 mm x 575 mm