Honesty in description?

Hi!
I am currently working on the Haiti catalogue (added almost 100 notes today only), and I have come up with a dilemma.
On many notes from this island nation, which is known as The First Black Nation, has beautiful pictures of people working in the fields. They are picking cotton, harvesting coffee, etc. If you search the internet these pictures are often described as "Field workers" or "Harvesters". But I mean, come on. They are slaves. Just admit it.
The problem with writing "Slaves working in the fields" feels so wrong on so many levels, even if it 's true. Should I continue writing "people harvesting fruit", or should be get real at face the reality? I bet the collectors of these notes will get a pretty bad taste in their mouths, but the truth hurts sometimes.

One can always argue that we cannot be 100% sure that these coloured people in the fields are black, but then please show notes where they are working with their white "friends".

I don't know if I really am considering writing "slaves working in the field", but I just thought I should share my thoughts with you guys, and see how you feel about it. I feel dirty and I feel like a liar when I am adding page after page of banknotes with these "workers in the fields" notes. I doubt they even got payed for their work. These theme goes even for African notes. The back often shows beautiful fields filled with "workers". The front though, has a portrait of the president. This president seems to always have a different origin than the workers. I wonder why.....

I seem to have lost track from my original thoughts, butI hope we can all agree that history sucks, and let's work towards a better tomorrow with high tolerance, lots of love, and respect. Lots of respect.

Stay safe out there, and take care of each other!

You raise a very valid & pertinent point.
Good on you for addressing this issue about the description.
Slaves is the correct status of those unfortunate humans who suffered grave injustice. I would go with that. Some others may not like it.
How about saying bonded labourers?

I get your point but I think it is too easy to get carried away with abstract notions and lose focus on what it is we are trying to acheive. We are not trying to change history and we would do well to remember that we are not making a social commentary in this numismatic catalogue, we are merely describing an image on a coin or a banknote, so as they say on a famous game show, "say what you see".

I'm not trying to play righteous or anything, it just suddenly hit me when working with the catalogue. To be honest, the thought haven't even crossed my mind until this morning, and I have no idea where it came from.
I know that we are not doing more than describing a picture, but by phrasing things differently, people will also start to see things differently. To have a picture of people working in the fields, and describing it as "farmers harvesting coffee", makes us admire the pictures and think how it would be like to live in that village at that time. Romantic, no sounds from police sirens and honking taxis. It's a beautiful picture on a beautiful day. But if it says "slaves harvesting coffee", we immediately get a bad taste in out mouth and our view of this beautiful day in drastically changed.

I'm not saying I will change all wordings to "slaves" and make everyone feel bad for liking a banknote. This is not what want, and that is not what I do. What I say is that I feel that we are lying to ourselves by saying these people are farmers, and that slaves only were brought from their homelands and worked on plantations and mines in foreign lands. They were also enslaved in their own lands, and worked for no pay.

These people were equal to the animals, so to have pictures of slaves harvesting fruits on banknotes were as startling as having oxes plowing the fields.

I agree that we shouldn't be carried away, so that's the reason why I wanted to lift this issue and see how the community wants to handle it.

Thank you.

Numista is the last place were I thought I was going to read something like this. I am totally against racism and I support human equality but this is going to far. People harvesting coffee or whatever sounds fair to me without creating a problem were there shouldn't be one. You don't know they are black you don't know they are slaves, keep it simple. I don't think anybody will be offended by that description.

Citeer: "allexis"​ Numista is the last place were I thought I was going to read something like this. I am totally against racism and I support human equality but this is going to far. People harvesting coffee or whatever sounds fair to me without creating a problem were there shouldn't be one. You don't know they are black you don't know they are slaves, keep it simple. I don't think anybody will be offended by that description.

​This is exactly what I mean. Since noone can be 100% certain, it's all good. But, to be real. But to be honest, do you really think so - or do you just want to believe so? Shall we pretend all is good?

No pretending is necessary. Haiti abolished slavery in 1804, well before its first banknotes were issued. The people are not slaves. There are coins and notes showing slaves, e.g., https://en.numista.com/catalogue/note223866.html. This example is clear given the image (note the chains) and the context (Livingstone campaigned against the East African slave trade).

Citeer: "ceh2019"​No pretending is necessary. Haiti abolished slavery in 1804, well before its first banknotes were issued.

​The oldest banknote in the Haitian catalogue so far is from 1790.

I'm not talking exclusively about Haiti, I'm talking in general. I just happen to be working with the Haiti caralogue when it hit me.

I should have said long before the Haitian notes in question. Which notes are you talking about and what evidence is there that they portray slaves?

Citeer: "ngdawa"If you search the internet these pictures are often described as "Field workers" or "Harvesters". But I mean, come on. They are slaves. Just admit it.

​I could find one type of image described as 'field workers', so I am assuming this is the picture you are talking about:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/note251338.html


My first question is: how do you know those are slaves?

While there was definitely slavery in Haiti, the fact that there are people depicted working in a field does not automatically mean this is a depiction of said slavery. It seems like agriculture is fairly important to Haiti's economy, so I would not doubt that, to this day, there are people working on farms or in fields for harvesting. It is tough work, but it is their occuption, and that does not mean they are slaves.

Citeer: "ceh2019"There are coins and notes showing slaves, e.g., https://en.numista.com/catalogue/note223866.html. This example is clear given the image (note the chains) and the context (Livingstone campaigned against the East African slave trade).

I agree: if the context is clear, there should be no harm in calling it what it is.

So if you cannot confirm the people on these Haitian notes are slaves, I would say to not call them slaves. If you do, you would be making an assumption that does not need to be made (which would be that argriculture is slavery).

Citeer: "ngdawa"I feel dirty and I feel like a liar when I am adding page after page of banknotes with these "workers in the fields" notes. I doubt they even got payed for their work. These theme goes even for African notes. The back often shows beautiful fields filled with "workers". The front though, has a portrait of the president. This president seems to always have a different origin than the workers. I wonder why.....

In Africa, agriculture is the biggest part of many countries' economies. I do not think it is right to assume these people (or those in Haiti) were not paid for their work: this is how many, many people make their livings (and those people are not slaves).

With agriculture being the biggest part of their economy, I imagine the scenes of workers likely depicts the 'average person' in the 'average occupation'. And the president would obviously look quite different: they are of a completely different occupation, unrelated to argiculture.

If you read the posts carefully you have all the answers to your questions. And like I said, the possibility about this just hit me.

Also, just because slavery was abolished in 19XX, it doesn't mean it ceased to exist. There's still slavery going on today, let's not forget that.

As I said, slavery was abolished in Haiti in 1804, not 19xx. There's simply no evidence these notes depict slaves.

Citeer: "ngdawa"​If you read the posts carefully you have all the answers to your questions. And like I said, the possibility about this just hit me.
​
​Also, just because slavery was abolished in 19XX, it doesn't mean it ceased to exist. There's still slavery going on today, let's not forget that.

​I did read everything, and there are no definite answers to my question--just assumptions.

And yes, slavery does still exist, but that fact alone does not mean these notes depict slaves--they could just be argicultural workers. So, if you cannot definitely confirm these notes depict slaves, then do not just assume it.

Citeer: "ceh"There's simply no evidence these notes depict slaves.

Agreed.

I guess the answer is no. It's fair. I was just asking, and had no plans in stating anything else. We must all be comfortable with our catalogue.

Cheers!

There are examples of pieces depicting slaves where we don't say so. For instance, Barbadian coins like this:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces40563.html
There are six types with the same obverse, but only one identifies the head as that of a slave. I think we do have some work to do here (and probably elsewhere), just not on the Haitian notes.