Americans have different views toward African Americans at different period of time throughout history and artists have demonstrated the social view of the time through their artworks. This painting is painted in 1830 and it’s one of Mount’s earliest works. The time is really important for us to understand this painting because as we all know, the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation is around 1860. The nation defeated British Forces in 1812 and after that it developed a southern-based plantation economy. So it makes sense that in 1830, the economy situation is still the southern based plantation economy and the word plantation suggested that it requires a lot of labors on the fields to pick up products such as cotton. In 1830, Most of the labors are African Americans and their labor are cheap. And they are seen as properties of landowners.
Let’s look at this artwork. This painting shows a happy gathering of white dancing. Their clothes are delicate, we can see that they are from upper class and they are wealthy. Among all those people, there are three African Americans and they form a triangle here. This one is like in the connor connor and that one is peering through this door. These two are playing music and another one is peering from the door. He’s holding a horsewhip. From the title, a rustic dance after a sleigh ride. We can assume that he’s the driver of the sleigh ride. These three African American’s jobs vividly depict the social role at that period of time. They are either slaves or some kind of musicians. And look at their
