Slavery Shackles – Iron – West Africa

Shackles consist of an iron bolt with a pair of loops slid onto it thorugh a hole in each end of the loop. One end of the bar is fixed closed by an integral metal flange large enough to prevent the loops from being removed. The other end of the bar ends in an “eye” and is locked by a large “lock washer” inserted at the time the shackles were applied.

Cast iron shackles of the type used to restrain enslaved people aboard the lower decks of a ship during the Middle Passage crossing the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas.

Shackles such as these are a grim reminder of the practices of slave trading that occurred during the Middle Passage Route. A captive African slave’s feet would have been bound in each ankle brace hammering in a ring on the end to secure the restraints in place. Due to the small size of this set, it was probably used on a female slave. One end of the shackle has a ring, which would likely have had a chain running through it to connect multiple people together.

Provenance: Manfred Schäfer, former gallery owner from Ulm, Germany.