William Henry Brooke, Preparatory Watercolor for “Slaves Shipping Cotton by Torch-Light” (1842) Livio Sanuto beat McKenney to the market

beat McKenney to the market with his own Aboriginal Port-Folio in 1835

the Constitution of the Republic of Texas (1836) provided that slaves could only be imported from the United States and not from Africa

Le Long’s mastery of gouache is evident in the velvety opacity of the pigments

Signed lower left: P

the forests of the north

William Henry Brooke, Preparatory Watercolor for “Slaves Shipping Cotton by Torch-Light” (1842) Livio Sanuto beat McKenney to the marketThis rare preparatory drawing by William Henry Brooke served as the foundation for an early published visual critique of slavery in the United States. Created for James Silk Buckinghams The Slave States of America (London, 1842), the image records forced labor along the Alabama River with emotional restraint and historical clarity. Buckinghams account helped shape British public understanding of American slavery and the growing abolitionist movement.