The enslaved subjects were photographed naked as scientific specimens

Evidence

The article mentioned fifteen daguerreotypes. Papa Renty’s was the first image that I saw. The second one was of “Alfred Foulah, belonging to I. Lomas, Columbia, S.C.” Papa Renty’s portrait was face-on, and while he was naked from the waist up, it appeared he had cloth wrapped around his lower torso. Alfred was stripped naked. His image was so startling that I had to avert my eyes: it was a side view of an older man, perhaps in his thirties or forties, looking straight ahead, so the viewer only sees his profile. His stomach is slightly distended, his shoulders slumped. There was another image to the right of that, of his nude backside. I found it so violent and so upsetting to see this man, father, brother being viewed like a scientific specimen. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 167

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Agassiz photographed enslaved people nude as scientific specimens on a plantation (similarity 0.92)
• Seven enslaved people posed nude for fifteen Harvard daguerreotypes. (similarity 0.86)
• The daguerreotypes were among the first photos ever taken of enslaved people (similarity 0.86)
• Agassiz’s photographer labeled enslaved subjects by first name, tribe, and owner (similarity 0.85)
• Agassiz photographed enslaved people as specimens to prove their subhumanity (similarity 0.84)
• Agassiz commissioned Zealy’s nude photographs of enslaved people for Harvard. (similarity 0.83)
• Papa Renty was among the first photographed and name-identified enslaved people (similarity 0.82)
• An enslaved ancestor was among the first photographed and identified by name (similarity 0.81)
• Agassiz commissioned the photos of enslaved people as evidence of racial inferiority (similarity 0.81)
• Agassiz cataloged enslaved people like zoological specimens for polygenesis research (similarity 0.79)
• Lanier first encountered her enslaved ancestor’s 1850 daguerreotype through a 1995 scholarly article. (similarity 0.79)
• Harvard funded polygenist research on enslaved people where slavery was already illegal (similarity 0.79)
• Enslaved people photographed for science were treated as specimens (similarity 0.79)
• Agassiz cataloged enslaved people’s photos the same way he cataloged animal species (similarity 0.79)
• Renty’s daguerreotype surfaced at the Peabody in 1976 after decades hidden (similarity 0.78)