Enslaved subjects could never have consented freely to being photographed.

Evidence

The judge then allowed Ben to speak, and he began by evoking the promise I made to my mother: to write down my family story. The prompt that led me to this very moment. Ben reiterated what Josh had said about Renty and Delia being victims, but he took it a step further by asking the judge to consider what might have happened if my ancestors had refused to be photographed. … “They would have been beaten. They would have been starved. They would have been tortured to death. Put simply, it is clear beyond any doubt that Renty and Delia would never have been given any option to refuse. These pictures were created at Harvard’s direction and at Renty’s expense, at Delia’s expense, at the expense of Renty’s lineal descendants and at the expense of every lineal descendant of African slavery in America.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1184

Categorization

• XREF: The consent-impossibility argument parallels the coerced-media theme in the ADDENDUM ‘sacrifice’ article and general debates about who may own representations of coerced subjects.