Few subjects interest me as much as American slavery, especially in South Louisiana. I was inspired by the thorough and profound relationship between slave Nannies and their Master’s children. The mother and child nurturing process is special and incredibly important in fostering a child’s love - but what happens when the Caucasian mother is replaced by a West African slave? A slave who has had her own children taken from her, yet she is given full responsibility of her Master’s children - including duties such as scolding and even breastfeeding when possible. As most mothers know: these duties build an unbreakable bond.
There have been so many misconceptions about slave Nannies for so many years in popular culture. From the incendiary stereotypes in Hollywood to the Aunt Jemima syrup in your pantry - our understanding of WHO they were and WHAT they did has been skewed.
I wanted to capture the emotion of the relationship and most importantly, celebrate their lives. Racism is learned, just like love. I want to think that all of the children that were raised by slave Nannies were at least exposed to the sensitivities of their caretaker and grew up to become more sensitive to slavery than their parents, but that can’t be proven.
So what is that at the bottom of the painting? Tobacco was a cash crop and the process took at least 15 months from sewing the seed to selling for profit in Europe. I included it in this painting because I wanted to establish the correlation between cultivating the crop and raising a child from birth, a child that is not yours. Even though slaves invested blood, sweat and tears into tobacco, it did not belong to them and they saw no profit from it. Being owned or not, the idea that they could put so much into something that benefited them in no way is intriguing to me. Although the Nanny and child relationship was very similar, at least their investment into the child was returned through innocent, unbiased love.
There have been so many misconceptions about slave Nannies for so many years in popular culture. From the incendiary stereotypes in Hollywood to the Aunt Jemima syrup in your pantry - our understanding of WHO they were and WHAT they did has been skewed.
I wanted to capture the emotion of the relationship and most importantly, celebrate their lives. Racism is learned, just like love. I want to think that all of the children that were raised by slave Nannies were at least exposed to the sensitivities of their caretaker and grew up to become more sensitive to slavery than their parents, but that can’t be proven.
So what is that at the bottom of the painting? Tobacco was a cash crop and the process took at least 15 months from sewing the seed to selling for profit in Europe. I included it in this painting because I wanted to establish the correlation between cultivating the crop and raising a child from birth, a child that is not yours. Even though slaves invested blood, sweat and tears into tobacco, it did not belong to them and they saw no profit from it. Being owned or not, the idea that they could put so much into something that benefited them in no way is intriguing to me. Although the Nanny and child relationship was very similar, at least their investment into the child was returned through innocent, unbiased love.
-js
This is the first piece of media having to do with slavery of any kind in more than one magnitude I find enlightening.
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