Cartouche on Fry-Jefferson Map

Slaves prepare hogsheads of tobacco for shipment, while the plantation owner, seated, conducts business and is served a glass of wine by another enslaved African in this cartouche on the 1755 edition of the Fry-Jefferson map, the most important map of Virginia drawn in the mid-eighteenth century. The cartouche was designed by artist Francis Hayman, and the scene emphasizes Virginia's dependence on chattel slavery for its tobacco economy.