For KS3 pupils, the BBC has put together some interesting educational resources on the slave trade and Belfast. More info here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z4x747h/articles/z2fk8hv To learn more slavery in Belfast, Book the ANTI SLAVERY BELFAST TOUR!
The ANTISLAVERY BELFAST TOUR reveals the story of Belfast’s involvement in this shameful transatlantic trade and the inspiring role of anti-slavery campaigners who ensured Belfast never profited from the trade in the same way as cities such as London, Liverpool, Glasgow or Bristol. Tours from The Salmon of Knowledge (The Big Fish) Donegall Quay Belfast BT1 3NG on Saturdays (Info is here!).
Very interesting podcast on Ireland and the abolitionist movement. Fin Dwyer talks to historian Christine Kinealy on how from the 1790s onwards numerous Black anti-slavery activists visited Ireland to build support for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself. This would see some of the most famous African Americans in history including Frederick Douglas visit Ireland. To learn more, book the ANTI SLAVERY BELFAST TOUR!
Belfast produced not one but two abolitionist watch makers. Thomas McCabe was the first and the second was Robert Neill, on High Street from 1803.Neill supplied watches, clocks, marine chronometers, optical equipment & jewellery. Some of the company’s oldest public clocks are still extant in Belfast. Robert Neill lost his wife, Letitia Ireland, in 1845, and dedicated his remaining days to helping others. A particular passion was the abolition of slavery. As an influential member of the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society he hosted three of the greatest American abolitionists, in October…
John Newton was born in Wapping, London. By the age of eleven he was serving on his father’s ship sailing to the Mediterranean. Later he was press ganged onto HMS Harwich eventually being exchanged for a merchant seaman. He resumed life in the maritime trade working on the West African coast buying slaves. For a time he was ‘enslaved’ himself and forced to work on a plantation. In 1747 he was rescued and returned to England on a ship called the ‘Greyhound’. The ‘Greyhound’ traded on gold, ivory, beeswax and…
In 1807, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was passed that prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire. The Act created fines for ship captains who continued with the trade. These fines could be up to £100 per enslaved person found on a ship. Captains would sometimes dump captives overboard when they saw Navy ships coming in order to avoid these fines. The first case brought under the act was that of Samuel Samo, who was tried by Chief Justice Robert Thorpe at the Vice-Admiralty Court…
On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Frederick Douglass was one of the most important personalities in the campaign for the abolition of slavery. He visited Belfast as a ‘fugitive slave’ in 1845 and again in 1846. Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born c.1817 on a Maryland plantation. He had an African slave mother and a white father, possibly his overseer, Aaron Anthony. He was bright and taught himself to read and write, in secret as learning was forbidden. The first book he bought included accounts of the suffering of…
Charles Lenox Remond was from Massachusetts and he was the first African-American to be employed by the American Anti-Slavery Society to promote their cause, giving talks across the Northeast of the US. His parents were freed slaves, so he had a relatively privileged upbringing for a black person in those times. His passionate oratorical skills in speaking out against slavery made a great impression on all.He worked alongside journalist William Lloyd Garrison, a white man who lead the abolitionist movement in the United States for many decades. In 1840 both…
The Act for the ‘Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves’ received Royal assent on 28 August 1833. The Act:1. made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of “the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company”, Ceylon and Saint Helena. 2. provided for compensation to slave-owners. The British government raised £20 million to pay out for the loss of…
The Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade received royal assent on 25 March 1807. It prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire but did not abolish the practice of slavery. Slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire in 1833. Slavery remained profitable in the British Empire up until 1807. Between 1791 and 1800, British ships made about 1,340 voyages across the Atlantic, landing nearly 400,000 slaves. Between 1801 and 1807, they took a further 266,000 individuals. The Act created fines for ship captains who continued…
The Zong was a slave ship that sailed from Accra on 18 August 1782 with 442 enslaved people, heading for Jamaica. During the voyage, due to a navigational error it was believed that the ship was further from its destination than presumed and that the ship did enough drinking water for all on board. The crew decided to throw 142 slaves overboard and the insurance they had taken out to minimise their expected financial loss. The insurers refused to pay up and slave owners took the insurers to court and…
John Brown (1800-1859) was an American abolitionist leader who was executed for leading a failed slave rebellion at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Brown grew up as an evangelical Christian with strong religious convictions; he believed that he was a “an instrument of God”, destined to strike the “death blow” to American slavery. Brown was the leading exponent of violence in the American abolitionist movement as decades of peaceful efforts had failed. Brown first gained national attention when he led anti-slavery volunteers and his own sons during the Bleeding Kansas…
Lincoln ran for president in 1860, sweeping the North of America to gain victory. Pro-slavery elements in the Southern states viewed his election as a threat to slavery, and Southern states began seceding from the US Union. The US Civil War broke out in 1861 and Lincoln mobilized forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the union. In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in the states “in rebellion” to be free. It also directed the Army and Navy to “recognize and maintain the freedom of…
This was sold in the Eighteenth Century to raise money to promote the abolition of slavery.‘Am I not a man and a brother’. ‘May slavery & oppression cease throughout the world’. On the edge is milled ‘Payable in Belfast, Dublin and Cork’. It is undated, but would have been produced in the 1790s, as where similar tokens in Britain and America. An Irish anti-slavery halfpenny token, sold to raise money to promote abolition. ‘Am I not a man and a brother’. ‘May slavery & oppression cease throughout the world’. On…
This was an alphabet book published in 1846 by the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Written by two of the society’s members, Hannah and Mary Townsend, it aimed to educate children with abolitionist ideas. The book is prefaced with a poem, “To Our Little Readers”, that encourages readers to talk to other children and adults about ending slavery, and to refuse foods made with sugar, which was produced on plantations worked by slave labour. Each page of the main body of the book is illustrated with two decorated upper-case letters of…
On 14 JULY 1792, many united Irishmen in Belfast celebrated BASTILLE DAY. Henry Joy McCracken proposed a toast to ‘To Mr. Wilberforce, and a speedy repeal of the infamous traffic in the flesh and bone of man.’To learn more about slavery in Belfast, to learn more, book the ANTI SLAVERY BELFAST TOUR!
