A plate from the second edition of John Gabriel Stedman’s 'Narrative of a Five Year's Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam'.

Stedman's wife Joanna (d.1782),who drew the picture on which this etching was based, was 15 when she married him. Joanna was of mixed race, but was still a slave. Stedman was unable to free his wife, and had to purchase his own son’s freedom when he was born.

John Gabriel Stedman (1744-97) was born in the Netherlands. His Scottish father was in Dutch service in the Scots Brigade, which Stedman also joined. In 1771 he volunteered to serve in the Dutch colony of Surinam to put down a slave rebellion. Shortly after his arrival in 1773, he married a mixed-race woman called Joanna and they had a son, who died in 1792 as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He left Surinam in 1777, leaving Joanna, who was still enslaved, behind. She died in 1782, by which time Stedman had already remarried a Dutch woman. His extensive memoir of his time in Surinam, published in 1793 with a second edition in 1806, is one of the most detailed contemporary accounts of life in a slave society. Stedman was an enthusiastic artist, and produced over 100 images to illustrate his narrative, to which were added a number commissioned by the publisher, including 16 by William Blake.