Remembering Slavery and Abolition in Bristol

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

Abstract This article charts how the public commemoration of slavery and abolition in the former slaving port of Bristol, England, evolved from the late nineteenth century to the bicentennial of the abolition of the British slave trade in 2007. It argues that by the late twentieth century, demographic changes in the city and the explosion in slavery scholarship helped to destabilise the consensus about how the city's slaving past should be characterised. It critically examines the different constituencies within the city who responded in a variety of ways to official calls to mark 'Abolition 200'. Acknowledgments This article builds on a paper delivered at the Remembering Slave Trade Abolitions Conference convened by Newcastle University on 24 November 2007. Thanks to Diana Paton, Jane Webster, Diana Jeater and Philip Ollerenshaw for their guidance and support, and to Edson Burton, Dawn Dyer, Asif Khan, Katherine Prior, Sarwat Siddiqui, Ros Martin, Paul Stephenson and Africans in One for kindly providing me with relevant material and advice. I alone bear responsibility for the content and arguments contained within this article. Notes Anon., 'Fifty Years in the Life of Bristol'. Nora, Realms of Memory, 1: ix–xiv, xv–xxiv, 1–20; Chivallon, 'Bristol and the Eruption of Memory', 347–363; Kowaleski Wallace, British Slave Trade, esp. 25–66; Oldfield 'Chords of Freedom', 1–6, 90–110. Dresser, 'Colston', 108; Morgan, Edward Colston. Flickr Blog/Brizzle Born and Bred: 'The Most Hated Statue in Bristol?' (7 December 2007) at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/2094281390/; Colston's School: 'Remembrance Service and Colston Day', 9 November 2006, at: http://www.colstons.bristol.sch.uk/09-news/Nonuniformday9nov06.html; The Dolphin Society: 'Aims of the Society' at: http://www.dolphin-society.org.uk/aims.html/ E.g., see Bristol Evening Post (England), 6 February and 9 April 1998; 11 and 16 April 2002; 18 and 22 November 2005; 5 and 16 April, 22 May, 30 August, 6, 7, 15 and 29 September 2007. BBC Radio Bristol had phone-ins and features on the subject, and see BBC Bristol and BBC News 'Inside Out – West', 31 January 2005, at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/west/series7/slavery.shtml; 'The John Turner Phone-in', BBC Radio Bristol, 31 May 2005 (recording in the author's possession). See also Chivallon, 'Bristol and the Eruption of Memory', 347–363; Kowaleski Wallace, British Slave Trade, 43–65. Lynn, 'From Sail to Steam', 235–239, 243, points out the importance of the trade in (slave-produced) palm oil trade from West Africa to Bristol in the nineteenth century. Sugar refining by such firms as Fissels in the nineteenth century, and the continuing importance of the Wills family to the city, illustrates the point. With reference to links to Jamaica, one of Bristol's largest building firms (W. Cowlins) employed 'native labour' in Jamaica on its contracts there as late as the 1920s. Draper, 'Possessing Slaves', has recently shown the links between residents in Clifton, Bristol, and the award of slave compensation, and I have documentation courtesy of Brian Murphy that a former slave plantation retained both place name and familial links with Bristol families up the 1950s. Anon., 'Morant Bay'; Anon., 'A Black Business in Jamaica'; Hall, Civilising Subjects, 420; Lorimer, Colour, Class and the Victorians, 163–211; Heuman, 'The Killing Time'. Latimer, Annals, 29, 188. See, e.g., the case of two young Jamaican stowaways to Bristol mentioned in The Horfield and Bishopston Record, 30 March 1907, and reproduced in the 'Bristol in 1807: A Sense of Place' Exhibition at Bristol Central Reference Library, 2007–2008. Western Daily Press, 2, 7 and 23 February, 1 May 1907. See the treatment of Bristol's slave trade in Anon., 'History of the Borough', 9–10. Weatherly, 'Untitled poem', celebrates Bristol. Anon., 'The Slave Question'. The reference to the 'Hebrides nigger' concerns the desperate conditions obtaining in the Hebrides, which saw mass emigration to Canada, America and the Falklands at the turn of the century. Anon (1908), Official Guide, 28–29, 43, 88–87. Thompson, Slaves for Bristol, unpaginated. See Anon., 'Bristol and the West African Slave Trade', 12; Anon., '"Cradle of Empire" Pageant', 125; MacInnes, Gateway of Empire; MacInnes, England and Slavery. Steen, The Sun is My Undoing, first published in 1941. The latest known edition is 1971. Williams, 'Reviewed Work', 525–526. Burton, 'African-Caribbeans', 149–151, 169; Dresser, 'Ethnic Diversity', 150. MacInnes, Bristol and the Slave-Trade, now included; Marshall, Anti-slave-trade Movement; Marshall, Bristol and the Abolition of Slavery. Rattansi, '"Western" Racisms', 27; Parekh, Future of Multi-ethnic Britain, 25–26. Clarke and Gardner, Mobility and Unsettlement. Richardson, Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-century Slave Trade; Richardson, Bristol Slave-traders. Morgan, Bristol and the Atlantic Trade; Joseph and Jones, Black Population of Bristol. Dresser et al., Slave Trade Trail. See also http://www.englandspastforeveryone.org.uk/Counties/Bristol/Projects/SlaveryTrail/SlaveryTrail?Session/@id=D_sU69gTHYe5iifCkrLQGq/ The Times, 29 January 1998. Gregory, A Respectable Trade. Eickelmann and Small, Pero, 7. Bristol City Council/Libraries and Museums Panel, Agenda Item 5; Department of Culture, Media and Sport/Museums and Galleries Division, Museums for the Many. Byrne, 'Slaves to the Past'. Gregory's 1998 novel A Respectable Trade was the basis for a BBC drama series; Port Cities/Bristol, Bristol and Transatlantic Slavery; Bristol Evening Post, 31 January and 4 June 2005. These issues came out in a 'Cultural Exchange' panel with Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Tony Sewell and Wendy Wente, organised by the Bristol City Council's Equalities Unit, which I chaired in October 2003. They were also expressed in subsequent public meetings (see Bristol Evening Post, 15 October 2005). Her Majesty's Government, The Way Forward; Her Majesty's Government, Understanding Slavery. I am grateful to Asif Khan for information on the background to the funding process. For Prescott and Lammy's involvement, see Bristol Evening Post, 29 November and 4 December 2005. For an overview of Abolition 200, see Her Majesty's Government, The Way Forward; Bristol City Council, Draft Legacy Report, Appendix 4, Abolition 200; Bristol City Council/Social Development Scrutiny Commission, Progress on Abolition 200. Bristol City Council, 'Ethnic Group' Census; Chivallon, 'Bristol and the Eruption of Memory', 351. Chivallon, 'Bristol and the Eruption of Memory', 352–358. See Note 5 above. A selection of white attitudes to this history were also expressed in 'The John Turner Phone-in', BBC Radio Bristol, 31 May 2005, and a racially mixed survey of selected schoolchildren indicates widespread ignorance about black history, which did not seem to be restricted to white children. BBC Bristol, Going Out: 'Black History Week in Bristol', 14 October 2003 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/goingout/2003/10/10/blackhistmonth.shtml); Bristol Radical History/Archive/2006, "The Atlantic Slave Trade"; Bristol Radical History/Archive/2007, "Slavery". Duodu, 'Can Bristol City Conceal its Slave Past?'; Hill, 'City Agonizes over Slavery'. Jones, Satan's Kingdom, along with other 'unofficial' variants of the slavery trail. Bristol City Council, Draft Legacy Report, Appendix 7, Abolition 200. This appendix contains Departmental Responses. 'Understanding Slavery Initiative', 22 July 2007 (http://www.understandingslavery.com/aboutus/). Black Development Agency, Position Statement. Asif Khan, Interview, 25 February 2008, also confirmed this as a view held by a significant section of local activists at the time (see Note 42). 'Statement of Regret in Abolition 200 – Bristol Commemoration'; Bristol Evening Post, 13 January 2007; Bristol City Council/Abolition 200-Bristol Commemoration, "Statement of Regret". For a full list of Council-sponsored events, see Bristol City Council, Draft Legacy Report, Appendix 5, Abolition 200. Bristol Evening Post, 13 March 2007; BBC Bristol, Talk Bristol: 'Have Your Say: Colston Hall', 9 March 2007 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2007/03/09/colstonhall_name_feature.shtml); BBC Bristol, Abolition: 'Is Bristol Racially Fractured?', 26 July 2007 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2007/03/22/insideout_marvin_feature.shtml); BBC Bristol, Entertainment/Community Events: 'Debates over City's Slavery Past', 10 May 2006 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2006/05/03/slavery_debate_event_feature.shtml). 'Ligali (pronounced lee-gar-lee) is the African British Equality Authority: 'We are a Pan African Human Rights Organisation that challenge the misrepresentation of African people and culture in the British media' (http://www.ligali.org/index.php); Ligali, 'Position Statement on the Bi-centenary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Maafa)' (http://www.ligali.org/truth2007/position.htm; and see Ligali: http://www.ligali.org/article.php?id=471). Bristol Evening Post, 26 March 2007; Western Daily Press, 26 March 2007; The Bristol Blogger, 'Whitewash?' and 'Addendum', 26 March 2007 (http://thebristolblogger.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/whitewash-addendum/). 'The Maafa translated into English means "The Enslavement of (Mama) Africa" … is derived from a Kiswahili word meaning disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy. When capitalised it refers to the oppression of African people murdered, raped and inhumanly enslaved by invading Arabs and Europeans. The definition includes the subsequent subjugation, contamination or loss of indigenous African cultures, languages, religions and encompasses the historic and ongoing commercial exploitation of Africa's human and natural resources through enslavement, colonisation and neo-colonialism' (http://www.ligali.org/terminology/terminology.php). Race Forum [Bristol], 'Minutes'. Operation Truth 2007. 'About Us' (http://www.operationtruth2007.co.uk/index.htm). See the remarks of Hilary Banks of Bristol, Transcript of 'Inside Africa: The Legacy of Slavery', aired 3 March 2007, 12:30 ET on CNN. Operation Truth 2007, 'About Us'. Awards for All, African People to Give Their Take; BBC Bristol, Abolition: 'Black Bristolians Give Their Views', 16 March 2007 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/articles/2007/03/16/descendants_feature.shtml). See the remarks of Hilary Banks of Bristol, Transcript of 'Inside Africa: The Legacy of Slavery', aired 3 March 2007, 12:30 ET on CNN. Bristol Evening Post, 27 March 2007. See Prior, 'Commemorating Slavery', 200–211. For a full list of Council-sponsored events, see Bristol City Council, Draft Legacy Report, Appendix 5, Abolition 200. For events at the universities, see University of Bristol, News/Press Release: 'Spotlight on the Slave-trade and its Aftermath', 15 March 2007 (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2007/5345.html); University of the West of England, Events at the Universities: 'Abolition 200' (http://info.uwe.ac.uk/news/UWENews/article.asp?item=1021&year=2007). For Scipio Africanus ceremony, see Bristol Evening Post, 13 October 2007. 'Our History, Our Heritage', Project Share 2008 (http://www.ourhistoryourheritage.org.uk/who.html); African Initiatives 2007 (http://www.african-initiatives.org.uk/media%20files/avoices%20final.pdf). Thornbury Local History and Archaeological Society, Slave-trade in Bristol. Bristol Evening Post, 30 August and 6 September 2007. Bristol 2007's weblog, 'The Aftermath – 200th Anniversary of "Abolition" of Slavery in British Empire' (http://bristol2007.wordpress.com/); Bristol City Council/Bristol Citizens'Panel Reports, A Bristol Citizens' Panel Survey. Bristol Evening Post, 7 and 11 January, and 12 April 2008; BBC News, 'Legacy Commission Set Up', 13 April 2008 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7345084.stm). Bristol Evening Post, 2 February 2005. Bristol 2007's weblog, 'The Aftermath'. As a direct result of Abolition 200, Bristol City Council launched in April 2008 a £250,000 'programme of work and initiatives to tackle inequalities in services, such as education and young people; health and wellbeing and cultural representation amongst Bristol's Black and African-Caribbean communities' and to promote intercultural dialogue. The Commission is funded until 2010 (see Bristol City Council, Launch of Bristol's Legacy Commission).