HISTORY

Why Some White People Want to Hide The Scars of Enslaved Man

A portrait exposes injustices that would otherwise be denied

Photo of Peter, also known as Gordon in Harper’s Bazarre 1863 | Public Domain

Black people were enslaved longer in this country than they have been free. Yet, some White people prefer to hide the nation's racial wounds rather than discuss them in the open. Consider, for example, the story of Peter, a Black man who escaped from a Louisiana plantation in 1863 and sought refuge at a Union base in Baton Rouge. During a physical exam before he joined the Black regiment, doctors saw his back, covered with twisted, raised scars, clearly the result of beatings from a whip. While White southerners often claimed Black people were happy as slaves, his back revealed evidence of torture. One journalist suggested, "This card photograph should be multiplied by 100,000 and scattered over the States. It tells the story in a way even Mrs. [Harriet Beecher] Stowe cannot approach, because it tells the story in the eye." While abolitionists gave speeches, wrote essays, articles, and poems about the horrors of slavery, the image presented the reality in a way words alone could not. One glance was enough to reveal the bitter truth about slavery in America.

The nation has a legacy of silencing discussions about slavery. Between 1836 and 1844, the U.S. House of Representatives…