"The Hunted Slaves"
1861
Oil on canvas
by British artist Richard Ansdell

The painting is in the collection of the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool.

Richard Ansdell painted this in 1861, giving us a powerful image of more horrors of chattel slavery in the United States at that time.

This image shows two self-emancipated Black slaves, the man still has chains on his wrist, fighting off a pack of mastiffs . Based on how slave hunters worked, I will assume that these dogs were let loose to direct the slave hunters or the slavers to the escaped slaves location/direction. These dogs do not appear to be wild, as one has a collar.

Imagine escaping enslavement, hiding in the wilderness and a pack of trained dogs come to hunt you. He seems determined to keep the freedom they have just gained as we see one dog slayed on the ground. He is defending both of them.

The man may be the woman's brother, father, husband or just a friend who was enslaved on the same plantation.
The painting dates from the same year as the beginning of the American Civil War.

"One of the consequences Britain faced because of the Civil War in America, was that the Civil War disrupted the harvest of and the export of raw cotton from American plantations causing a “cotton famine” and leading to hardship to the people who worked and lived in the mill towns of Lancashire.

Ansdell donated 'The Hunted Slaves' to a lottery held to raise money for the relief of "the cotton famine", raising £700 (equivalent to £35,000 today). and the winner Gilbert Moss of Liverpool, gave it to the Corporation of Liverpool. "

"Abolitionist writings from the United States and Europe undoubtedly had an important impact on artists and writers. Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', which had been inspired by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, won immediate popularity throughout Europe. A passage in this book describing how an enslaved man named Scipio was cornered by a pack of dogs in a swamp may have been the inspiration for Ansdell's painting.

Harriet Beecher Stowe had even visited Liverpool in 1853, where she addressed meetings on the evils of slavery. Her liberal views were not well received. Liverpool was heavily dependent upon the importation of raw cotton from the Southern States and the export of finished goods. Several Liverpool merchants enthusiastically supported the Southern Confederacy states. They believed that slavery kept cotton prices low, so its abolition would have a damaging effect on the economy of north west England.

The Federal blockade of the Confederate ports during the American Civil War prevented the export of much cotton, upon which the Lancashire cotton mills were dependent, leading to serious unemployment and hardship in the area."

Source: The International Slavery Museum in Liverpool