A Wall for Quock Walker
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
- Entitled "A Wall for Quock Walker," Hachey's painting is a historical mural based on a series of court cases in Worcester County dating from 1781 to 1783. Having granted Quock Walker, an African-American slave, his freedom, these cases are significant for producing the earliest legal decision against slavery in the new republic. A tripartite composition, the mural depicts images associated with these eighteenth-century cases: Judge Cushing, the Superior Court Judge; Levi Lincoln, Walker's attorney; the historic Worcester Courthouse; and the area landscape. The central panel holds an 18th century farm scene--an intensely cultivated, well-ordered environment of crops and stone walls. To the upper left of this panel is a standing figure discernible only by way of his leggings, cuffs, and tie. This represents Walker himself--a man of courage and tenacity, but a person about whom little is known beyond the facts of the case.
To the left beyond Walker, above the doors, is an ominous landscape of stump fences and lightning. This scene represents the untimely death in 1763 of James Caldwell, Walker's original master. In silhouette within this panel is Levi Lincoln, Walker's fiery defense attorney, who later served as U.S. Attorney General under President Thomas Jefferson.
To the right of the central panel is an image of birch logs bundled around a woodcutter's ax, a New England interpretation of the Roman fasces, symbolizing legal authority. Above the right doors is the Worcester courthouse in which the trials took place. Silhouetted in profile in this panel is then Massachusetts Chief Justice William Cushing, the author of the 1783 decision effectively abolishing slavery in Massachusetts. Cushing later became one of the first of a panel of Justices appointed to the Supreme Court of the U.S. by President George Washington.
Bordering each of the three sections are a series of complex symbols expressive of 18th century West African artworks and early American politics, crafts, and trades. Hachey's trademark arching lines permeate each panel, unifying the composition.
