The huge success of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin," published in 1852, induced English potters to manufacture a plethora of related items. This figure is one of a set six depicting characters from the novel, as well as the author herself.

New York illustrator, portrait painter, and political cartoonist David Edward Cronin served in the Union Army as a staff artist for Harper's Weekly and came face to face with the grim realities of slave life. Cronin's painting of a group of desperate fugitives makes reference to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a controversial law that empowered federal commissioners to pursue fugitive slaves in all states and return them to their owners. The painting was likely inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "The Slave in the Dismal Swamp," first published in 1842: In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp The hunted Negro lay; He saw the fire of the midnight camp, And heard at times a horse's tramp And a bloodhound's distant bay. Where hardly a human foot could pass, Or a human heart would dare, On the quaking turf of the green morass He crouched in the rank and tangled grass, Like a wild beast in his lair. A poor old slave, infirm and lame; Great scars deformed his face; On his forehead he bore the brand of shame, And the rags, that hid his mangled frame

With this small plaster John Rogers burst onto both the art world and the political scene in New York in the months leading up to the Civil War. He boldly depicted a slave auction in progress, illustrating the tragedy of a family about to be torn apart. The father stands defiantly, with arms crossed, and his wife stands on the other side of the podium. Rogers noted that he portrayed her with Caucasian features to suggest that she was of mixed race, alluding to the sexual abuse of female slaves by their masters. She tenderly holds her baby, while her other child, a toddler, hides fearfully behind her skirt. The auctioneer presides over a rostrum with a sign that describes the sale with chilling dispassion: "Great Sale/of/Horses, Cattle/Negroes & Other/Farm Stock/This Day at/Public Auction." Rogers made clear the evil being perpetrated by the auctioneer: his hair forms two curls that resemble the horns of a devil, and what appears to be a tail peeks out from the back of his coat. Rogers himself described the work most vividly: "I have got a magnificent Negro on the stand. He fairly makes a chill run over me when I look at him. . . . The auctioneer I have rather idealized . . . two little quirks of hair give the impression of horns. The woman will be more clearly white and she and the children will come in gracefully. I am entirely satisfied to stake my reputation on it." Rogers modeled the sculpture while he was working as a draftsman for the city surveyor in Chicago. He had high hopes for the work, expecting it would be "the most powerful group I have ever made." The acclaim it earned in the Midwest inspired him to move to New York to establish himself as a professional artist. Rogers first offered it for sale at a pivotal moment, just two weeks after John Brown was executed for attempting to capture the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in a plan to liberate slaves. Rogers tried soliciting subscriptions for his sculpture, but apparently with little success. He wrote home in dismay, "I find the times have quite headed me off, for the Slave Auction tells such a strong story that none of the stores will receive it to sell for fear of offending their Southern customers." Rogers had misjudged his audience; he was familiar with the fervent abolitionism of his New England home, and he had not counted on New York's strong commercial ties to the South, which divided the city's sympathies. Undaunted, he hired a black man to sell the group in the streets, a common means of marketing small sculpture usually practiced by Italian artisans. He attracted the attention of the abolitionist Lewis Tappan, who brought Rogers sales in antislavery circles. The abolitionist George B. Cheever wrote a flattering notice in the Independent. The plaster was acclaimed by other abolitionist publications like the National Anti-Slavery Standard and the New York Daily Tribune. Meanwhile, Rogers developed a companion piece called The Farmer's Home (no versions are extant). Intended as a stark contrast to The Slave Auction, the group was described as follows: "The hearty, happy father, after his day's work, or on his return from the field, is seated beside his wife, with a laughing baby astride his foot [which he holds] by both hands to be tossed up and down to a tune which the father is whistling. Another frolicking fat urchin is climbing on his shoulder." A dog and kitten complete the contented image. The representation of the Northern family highlighted the injustices visited on the slave family. Rogers tried to promote the two sculptures as a pendant pair, taking them to a partner at the New York jeweler Ball and Black. The gentleman "praised them both up to the skies" but admitted that he preferred The Farmer's Home for its "more pleasing subject." In later years The Slave Auction became an icon of Rogers' patriotism, but it was never a popular work of art. It remained in his sales catalogue until 1866, but the great rarity of surviving examples suggests that few were sold. The group has enjoyed much better fortunes in its afterlife as

In 1837 the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York commissioned a New Jersey firm to issue copper tokens featuring a kneeling slave with the legend "AM I NOT A WOMAN & A SISTER." Based on an earlier design of a chained and kneeling slave used for the seal of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, founded in England in 1787, this version substitutes a woman for the customary enslaved male. The appearance of the female icon in Britain and the United States symbolized not only a growing awareness of the special vicissitudes that women suffered under slavery as victims of sexual exploitation but also recognition of the prominent role that women were playing in the antislavery movement.

Silversmith Simeon Soumain is known to have been a slave owner. In 1741, when the "Great Negro Plot" threatened in New York City, Soumain's slave Tom told authorities that the conspirators asked him to get swords from his master's shop. Two years later, Soumain advertised that a pepper box much like this had been stolen.

This portrait was painted from a photograph, possibly around the time of Brown's trial and execution when interest in him ran high among abolitionists.