Land of the Lotus Eaters by Robert Duncanson

African American artist Robert S. Duncanson’s painting, Land of the Lotus Eaters, offers a glimpse into the enslavement of African American people and the resolution to the Civil War. 

History of the Lotus Eaters

In Book 9 of the Homeric epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus tells the Phaecians stories of his journey home from Troy. A storm pushes Odyssesus and his men to the land of the Lotus Eaters. Here his men shared with the lotus-eaters “their sweet delicious fruit. But as they ate it they lost the will to come back.” The lotus made Odysseus’s men never want to leave as they lived in a state of bliss, forcing Odysseus to take them back in chains.  

Historians believe that the lotus eaters were inhabitants of Northern Africa, specifically islands off of Tunisia or Libya. Some historians believe this intoxicating fruit resembles the addictive psychoactive Blue Lotus chewed on by many North Africans. 

A Better Future

In order to understand how Duncanson’s sublime painting represents a future for African American people in the United States, we must look at the content and context of the painting. Land of the Lotus Eaters was exhibited for the first time two months into the start of the Civil War. Duncanson’s idyllic painting depicts a peaceful gesture by Native Americans offering white men, dressed in military attire, a lotus flower in the American West. Duncanson’s portrayal of the western migration during the period of Manifest Destiny shows harmony between two groups. He uses this as an analogy to foster a mending of relations between whites and blacks in America during the Civil War period. This Hudson River School style scene is inviting and picturesque, while in The Odyssey this was somewhere the Greeks wanted to flee. Duncanson’s painting displays a union of two groups while Homer focuses on a need to separate from each other.

The offering in the foreground of the painting alludes to the tension in the United States regarding slavery and the ongoing Civil War. Showing a peaceful resolution, Robert Duncanson’s painting does not just depict a world where the oppression of people never existed but rather one where the conflict is resolved and the people of the United States could live as one. The peaceful relations of East and West are expressed in this painting to inspire them between North and South in which the two groups lived as one. But could his painting also be reminiscent of the past?

An Unwelcome Visitor

In Homer’s epic, Odysseus’ ships were pushed towards the place where the lotus-eaters lived in North Africa against their will; however, they were pushed there by Zeus. During the Atlantic Slave Trade, Africans were taken from their homeland and forced across the sea. With historians identifying the land of the Lotus Eaters to be in Africa, the artist connects Civil War issues with the interaction between Odysseus’ men and the lotus eaters. Just as Odysseus’ men had to be chained up and thrown onto the boats to return to their home, the African people were chained up, however they were taken away from their homes. 

The white men appearing as soldiers could be representative of slave traders arriving in Africa to a tranquil undisturbed people. Once again, Duncanson is connecting Manifest Destiny to race relations in the United States. The Europeans claimed to be there because of their superiority over an “uncivilized people” and there to “evangelize” the African people. Odysseus’ crew arrived in the land of the lotus-eaters forced by one of their gods against their will. The slave traders were unwelcome visitors in Africa and the Greek sailors did not want to be visitors in the land of the lotus eaters. Willed to new lands by a higher power, both Africans and Odysseus’ men wanted to return to their homes. Duncanson connects the forcing of someone to be kept away from their home in the Odyssey by the intoxicating lotus and the enslavement of African people in the United States. 

A Cultural Renaissance

Upon their forceful arrival to the United States, slaves were forced to forget the religion and traditions of their fathers and learn those of their captors, just as Odysseus’ men forgot their homes. This repression of African culture during the time of Duncanson’s painting was reverted during the Harlem Renaissance. 

Eliza Ge in her article The Black Odyssey, a Modern Mythology? discusses Romare Bearden’s series of collages recreating Homer’s Odyssey. Eliza Ge highlights the loss of identity that African Americans faced as similar to when “Circe turns all of Odysseus’ men except Eurylochus into swine.” Comparing the struggle of African Americans to maintain their cultural identity in the United States prior to the Harlem Renaissance can be attributed to the conflict that Robert Duncanson imagined peacefully resolved. 

Not only does Robert Duncanson’s work Land of the Lotus Eaters look forward to a time of peaceful coexistence but it also looks back to a time of forced coexistence.

Patrick Valerius is a Freshman at Colgate University. He is from Miami, Florida and plans to major in Economics and Mathematics.