Comparing Thomas Nast's Emancipated Slaves And Black Soldier

Thomas Nast, a resolute civil rights activist in the 19th century, illustrated and depicted the rarely discussed oppressiveness of slavery through his realistic paintings. A common and mainly accepted practice in America at that time, slavery was encouraged by thousands yet genuinely represented and understood by few. Attempting to move his audience through pictures and powerful visual imagery rather than words, Nast revealed the tyranny that the majority of America supposedly supported and defended his belief in all of his artwork, but more specifically, in his drawings, “Emancipated Slaves” and “Black Soldier”, that slaves deserved to be treated as equally as any other person. In his sketch, “Emancipated Slaves”, Nast poignantly demonstrated the stages of an emancipated slave’s life.

The images on the left and the right seem to correlate and show African Americans in similar positions; however, where an uncaring, merciless tyranny is shown on the left, an unfettered future for slaves is shown on the right, illustrating the potential that a slave’s life could have and be contrasted with the bleak present blacks were currently experiencing at that time. Thomas Nast, through his dramatic portrayal of the shocking contrast between a normal slave’s and a freed slave’s life in “Emancipated Slaves”, normalized the freedom of African American families and appealed to those in his audience who had a fervent love for their family. In one of his other famous artworks, “Black Soldier,” Nast powerfully portrayed an example of what a black soldier might look like after surviving the Civil