Peter (enslaved man)

Rare card · No. 46671

Peter (fl. 1863) (also known as Gordon, "Whipped Peter", or "Poor Peter") was an escaped American slave who was the subject of photographs documenting the extensive keloid scarring of his back from whippings received in slavery. Although keloid scarring was not a usual consequence of whipping, the "scourged back" photo became one of the most widely circulated photos of the abolitionist movement during the American Civil War and remains one of the most notable photos of the 19th-century United States. The photo of the scourged back "spurred a number of different narratives, all of which were intended to illustrate the meaning of his portrait, and privilege his photograph as a means by which to picture slavery and dramatize the need for abolition". In 2013, Joan Paulson Gage wrote in The New York Times that "The images of Wilson Chinn in chains, like the one of Gordon and his scarred back, are as disturbing today as they were in 1863. They serve as two of the earliest and most dramatic examples...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Mathew Benjamin Brady, Public domain