Thousands of American citizens have been torn from their country and from everying dear to them: they have been dragged on board ships of ward of a foreign nation. -Madison, 1 June 1812 – (Jacob Lawrence) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Jacob Lawrence

Date: 1956

Size: 41 x 31 cm

Technique: Tempera

Lawrence depicts a menacing officer of the British Royal Navy lording over American sailors whom British forces have captured, bound, and injured. Despite their physical bulk and apparent heroic strength, the men bow their heads in subordination to their oppressive new commander. Lawrence’s subject focuses on a practice known as impressment, in which British naval forces would seize and force American sailors and merchant seamen into service for Great Britain. The artist undoubtedly associated this brutal practice with the dehumanizing and painful conditions of chattel slavery. President James Madison argued that impressment was a justifiable pretext for war in his June 1, 1812, appeal to Congress, which Lawrence excerpted for this panel’s title caption. The official declaration of the War of 1812 followed seventeen days later.