Antislavery Ceramics

Although only one and a quarter inches in diameter, the medallion’s image of a kneeling slave in chains imploring “Am I Not a Man and a Brother” was the first, most common, and most effective anti-slavery image created by the abolition movement. The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade chose it for its seal, and Benjamin Franklin declared that the medallion’s effectiveness in America was “equal to that of the best written Pamphlet, in procuring favour to those oppressed People.”