The Virginia Horse

Two enslaved Black men tend a Virginia racehorse in this mid-nineteenth-century watercolor sketch by Lewis Miller. Below the drawing, the artist—a Pennsylvania native who traveled extensively in Virginia and eventually settled there—wrote a pro-slavery argument. In addition, Miller had words of praise for Virginia as a breeding place for horses: "In thee Alone, fair land of virginia, is bred the perfect horse, in Speed as yet unrivalled; while in other climes their virtue fails."