Clothed in Resistance: Clothing and Domestic Work on Woodland Plantation

“On to Orleans" : The Negro Insurrection (1888), by Maurice Thompson, illustrated by LJ Bridgman. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

This representation of the enslaved persons participating in the 1811 Revolt is highly stylized and likely drawn from the illustrator’s imagination. However, you can see a few items common to enslaved persons (if inaccurately attributed)–the headwraps upon the flag-bearer’s and drummer’s heads and the ragged shirts, for example.