Depictions of Slavery in Confederate and Southern States Currency
Original Acrylic on Canvas Paintings by

Artist Statement page 2

Recycled Images. Caught off guard by the demand for images of slavery on Southern currency, printers responded by converting their existing engravings of white people into black slaves. In “Slave Picking Corn”, the engraving of a white farmer carrying a basket of corn issued by the Citizens Bank of Washington, DC becomes a black slave carrying the same basket of corn on a note issued by the Bank of Howardsville in Virginia.

       With the image portrayed in Slave Profits, Moneta, the Roman Goddess of Money, has her fingers and toes on gold coins while slaves toil in the cotton field behind her. They work and she gets the money. I deliberately painted her as a mulatto to emphasize the sexual exploitation of black women that also expanded the numbers of the slave caste.

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