The most famous image associated with the abolitionist movement is this diagram of a slave ship packed with human cargo. It was commissioned by Thomas Clarkson, the leader of the anti-slavery cause in England who resolved to alert the public to this shocking reality after visiting a ship firsthand. "The sight of the rooms below and of the gratings above filled me both with melancholy and horror," he later wrote. "I found soon afterwards a fire of indignation kindling within me." The image of the Brookes was distributed widely through magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, and posters that were put up in pubs and in the homes of abolitionists.

While Clarkson’s diagram may seem to be an exaggeration, its dimensions are entirely accurate and its depiction of 482 people was actually far less than the totals recorded by ship captains who practiced what was called "tight-packing." The Brookes carried well over 600 Africans on some of its voyages. The scale of the suffering was staggering. Over three times as many Africans as Europeans crossed the Atlantic Ocean, often crammed together side by side in spaces that were only several feet high. Records show that only half of the people brought on the ships survived this terrible voyage, many of them with permanently crippling injuries that only worsened after arrival due to the gruelling toil of slave labor.

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"Plan of the Slave Ship Brookes," in Thomas Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progression, & Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament. London, 1808.