A daguerreotype took somewhere between three and 15 minutes of exposure time, and the end result was a detailed image imprinted on a small copper-plated sheet, covered with a thin coat of silver. Brought from the fields to a photography studio in Columbia, South Carolina, each person was photographed from different angles, in the hopes of finding photographic evidence of physical differences between the Black enslaved and the white masters who owned them. The bodies in the photographs had been shaped by hard labor on the grub plantation, where they’d spent their lives stooped over sandy soil, working approximately 1,200 acres of cotton and 200 of corn. In 1850, when these images were captured, the subjects in the daguerreotypes were considered property. The label on his photo says: Renty, Congo, on plantation of B.F. In another frame, her father stands before the camera, his collarbone prominent, and his temples peppered with gray and white hair. The paper label that accompanies her likeness reads: Delia, country born of African parents, daughter of Renty, Congo. Her stare seems to penetrate the glass of the frame, peering into the eyes of the viewer. Her hair is plaited close to her head, and she is naked from the waist up. From the background of one, the image of a Black woman’s body emerges. They’re wrapped in a leatherette case and framed in gold. T he photographs are about the size of a small hand.
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