The Abolition of the Slave Trade – Isaac Cruikshank (1792)

Isaac Cruikshank’s 1792 satirical print critiques the Middle Passage by showing enslaved Africans being thrown overboard from a British slave ship. Its graphic scene condemns the violence of the transatlantic slave trade.

The print was made by Isaac Cruikshank, a British caricaturist active in the late eighteenth century. It dates from 1792, during growing British abolitionist campaigning.

The Middle Passage was the forced Atlantic voyage that transported enslaved Africans to the Americas. Cruikshank focuses on the lethal treatment of captives aboard a British slave ship.

It uses shocking visual evidence instead of an abstract political argument. By showing enslaved people discarded at sea, the image exposes the human cost of the trade that abolitionists sought to end.