Formed from clays unique to their geographical origins, most ceramic objects were made to serve basic functions. Yet they also contain important histories about global maritime and overland trade, slavery, and the exploitations of colonialism.

Enslaved on a sugar plantation or as a domestic servant, the Black figure bending over a sugar basket was originally intended as a functional novelty, but it now registers its true meaning of undeniable racism and subjugation. It was made in Europe in the 1700s, when many African people were being forcibly taken from their lands as slaves. Most of Africa was eventually seized as Western empires claimed vast amounts of the world as their own, violently displacing communities with Western colonists and systems that exploited people and natural resources and economies.