Figure033

Citation

Kimball (dates Unknown Photographer Photographer). “Wilson Chinn.” 1863. Greg French Collection. Mirror of Race, 11 Feb. 2021, mirrorofrace.bc.edu/items/show/259. Accessed 30 Apr. 2024.

Title

Wilson Chinn

Subject

Wilson Chinn

Creator

Kimball (dates Unknown Photographer Photographer)

Date

1863

Type

studio portrait, social-political

Identifier

Figure033

Rights Holder

Greg French Collection

Original Format

carte de visite: albumen print

Physical Dimensions

cdv standard

Factual Commentary

This photograph shows Wilson Chinn, a former enslaved person, displaying implements of bondage and punishment used against slaves such as he had been. The image is one of a series of photographs produced in 1863 to lend moral support to the Union cause in the Civil War and to raise funds for schools for African Americans in the occupied Confederate territories. Chinn and seven other former slaves, both adults and children, came north for a publicity tour, accompanied by an officer from one of the newly formed regiments of African American soldiers.

Chinn had been enslaved to a man named Volsey B. Marmillion, who ran a sugar plantation near New Orleans. Marmillion had the habit of branding his slaves with his initials, VBM, and this can be seen on Chinn’s forehead here ― the brand is retouched on the photography’s negatives, as it must have been hard to see (click on the image to the left for a close-up). The spiked collar would prevent a person from lying down, the leg iron would prevent running, and the perforated paddle on the floor was for beatings.

The caption of this photograph reads in part: “Wilson Chinn, a branded slave from Louisiana; also exhibiting instruments of torture used to punish slaves. Photographed by Kimball, 477 Broadway, N. Y. Ent’d accord’g to act of Congress in the year 1863...”

Text printed on the reverse of the card reads: “The proceeds from the sale of these Photographs will be devoted exclusively to the education of colored people in the Department of the Gulf, now under the command of Major-General Banks.” The back is also stamped: “All Orders Must Be Addressed to H. N. Bent, 1 Mercer St., N. Y.” See the enlarged illustration below.

Interpretive Commentary

The series of photographs of emancipated slaves to which this one of Wilson Chinn belongs (see here for more in the series) constitutes one of the first times that mass-produced photography was used as propaganda in a campaign for a political goal.

Is it fair to ask if Chinn and the other former slaves, including five children, were once again being exploited by this posing of them for the camera? Or is it more likely that having endured and escaped slavery, they were perfectly willing to lend their visible forms to this publicity campaign? If so, these photographs would embody their agency as an expression of their new-found freedom.

So then would it be right to call this photograph a portrait of Wilson Chinn, in the way it is hard to call portraits the daguerreotypes of Delia, forced into the photographer’s studio to serve as an illustration for a scientific theory, or the unnamed Richards family slave? They both had no agency in how they appeared for the camera, and a “portrait” usually implies the person portrayed has some choice in how she or he is to be portrayed. Yet we also speak of “taking” someone’s portrait, and so there is a sense that we might capture the essence of a person without their knowing or against their will, as often happens in photojournalism.

Would Chinn or the other emancipated slaves from New Orleans freely choose to show themselves in this way, for example in chains, as we see Chinn, if they wanted to make a portrait of themselves? Or would Chinn, like Frederick Douglass telling the story of his slavery and freedom, understand this kind of portrayal as what would in fact best tell the story of who he was and hoped to be?

Alternative Title

Collection

Mirror of Race