This extraordinary lantern slide is inscribed: ‘An Arab master’s punishment for a slight offence. The log weighed 32 pounds, and the boy could only move by carrying it on his head. An actual photograph taken by one of our missionaries.’.

From at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful weapon in the abolitionist arsenal. Photographic images of slavery provided vivid and irrefutable evidence of the ongoing cruelty of the East African and Indian Ocean trades. They were often used as the basis for engravings reproduced in popular journals such as ‘The Graphic’ and ‘The Illustrated London News’.