New Year’s Day is also the anniversary of Lincoln’s January 1, 1863 signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. To celebrate the signing, Tomas Nast sketched a rich cartoon about the impact of emancipation.
From the Library of Congress description:
Thomas Nast’s celebration of the emancipation of Southern slaves with the end of the Civil War. Nast envisions a somewhat optimistic picture of the future of free blacks in the United States. The central scene shows the interior of a freedman’s home with the family gathered around a “Union” wood stove. The father bounces his small child on his knee while his wife and others look on. On the wall near the mantel hang a picture of Abraham Lincoln and a banjo. Below this scene is an oval portrait of Lincoln and above it, Thomas Crawford’s statue of “Freedom.” On either side of the central picture are scenes contrasting black life in the South under the Confederacy (left) with visions of the freedman’s life after the war (right). At top left fugitive slaves are hunted down in a coastal swamp. Below, a black man is sold, apart from his wife and children, on a public auction block. At bottom a black woman is flogged and a male slave branded. Above, two hags, one holding the three-headed hellhound Cerberus, preside over these scenes, and flee from the gleaming apparition of Freedom. In contrast, on the right, a woman with an olive branch and scales of justice stands triumphant. Here, a freedman’s cottage can be seen in a peaceful landscape. Below, a black mother sends her children off to “Public School.” At bottom a free Negro receives his pay from a cashier. Two smaller scenes flank Lincoln’s portrait. In one a mounted overseer flogs a black field slave (left); in the other a foreman politely greets Negro cotton-field workers.
Now let’s look at a high-resolution version up close. The left side of the cartoon shows life as it was for enslaved people. Escaping slaves are shot at by slave catchers while metaphorical hell-hounds controlled by devils pursue.
The bottom scene depicts the torture of slaves, including a woman and child. The stripping of the woman suggests the sexual depravity of the enslavers. The prosperous owner, in a top hat at the center of the scene, is casually smoking while humans are suffering. On the far right at the bottom is a slave being whipped in the fields.
Next is the depiction of the auction block. The podium says “Public Sale Negroes.” At the bottom left, a Black woman is pleading with a buyer that she not be sold away from her children. On the bottom right a father says goodbye to his child. Above the pavillion on the top left floats a Confederate flag, showing that this is a contemporary scene and that slavery will continue if the Confederacy survives.
On the right side of the cartoon is a depiction of what the future holds if the Union triumphs. The first scene shows the army struggling for victory.
No longer slaves, a Black couple enjoys the simple pleasure of relaxing outside their own home.
Black children head off to a public school for the first time in the South. In the background is a free Black church.
Instead of slaving, African Americans will now be paid for their work.
The central scene of the entire cartoon is an African American family together in their own home. Three generations are united in this drawing. Under slavery, families were often broken up by slave sales.
Next to grandma is a steaming kettle. It is on a stove marked “Union.”
The young son carries a book, a revolutionary symbols for a people kept in illiteracy by the laws of the Southern states.
Over the domestic scene is the image of Abraham Lincoln.
