English abolitionist groups donated great numbers of artifacts to American organizations, which in turn sold the pieces at fairs and public meetings to raise money for their cause. Some of these abolitionist art forms depict the horrors of slavery, which Benjamin Franklin had described as "this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men." The pitcher seen here shows the dehumanizing practice of selling people at auction on one side and a scene of a slave being beaten on the other. Both scenes are set on a tropical island, a locale also evoked by the mounted coconut shown here. Although Toussaint L’Ouverture and his allies had ended colonialist rule and forced slavery in Haiti, countless other people throughout the Caribbean region remained in bondage.

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