Agassiz cataloged enslaved people’s photos the same way he cataloged animal species

Evidence

In 1850, Agassiz traveled to a South Carolina plantation to gather evidence for polygenesis. He observed enslaved workers there and long after his return to Cambridge he studied portraits taken of five of the men and two of the women. Agassiz classified and cataloged those men and women by their physical characteristics in much the same way that he classified and cataloged species of animals earlier in his career. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 606

Categorization

• QUESTION: Exactly how many total portraits — seven enslaved workers — and who were the other unnamed subjects? Worth chasing for the reparations case record.
• XREF: The photographic objectification of enslaved subjects parallels how a museum stores specimens; connects to the property-as-life-after-slavery thesis central to the reading purpose.