'A Negro Woman's Lamentation' RMG E9995

'A Negro Woman's Lamentation'
The engraving depicts an African woman kneeling beneath a palm tree with broken chains before on the ground; she holds a Bible to her breast. The caption reads: ‘This book tell man not to be cruel; oh that massa would read this book’. The conflict between Christian belief and the slave trade is further developed in the 12 verses of ‘The Negro woman’s lamentation’ that flank the engraving. The verses deal with the woman’s journey from blissful freedom in Africa, through capture at the hands of ‘the fierce man-stealing crew’, separation from her husband and the death of her child during the Middle Passage, to her cruel enslavement by ‘massa hard’. It ends with an appeal: ‘Cease, ye British sons of murder!/ Cease from forging Afric’s chain;/ Mock your Saviour’s name no further;/ Cease your savage lust of gain’.

'A Negro Woman's Lamentation'