Unnamed attendant and Henry Darnall III (1702-ca. 1787)

Description

An enslaved child valet, not identified by name, wears a tawny jacket and white shirt with a silver collar around his neck. The boy-child is pictured attending to his enslaver, a young Henry Darnall III (c. 1702 – c. 1783), who is dressed in a yellow-orange tunic with green cape holding a bow and arrow. Darnall is depicted as approximately 8 years old, the enslaved boy looks of similar age or younger.

Throughout colonial British America, it was common for enslavers to purchase silver collars, like the wide collar worn by valet in this image, engraved with the enslavers' name and address to be worn at the neck by people they held in bondage. The dead bird that the enslaved boy holds in his right hand—presumably killed with Darnall's bow and arrow—is another marker of the servile status inflicted on the unnamed child. His placement behind the balustrade is intended to reinforce an inferior position to his enslaver, Darnall.