Felicity Heywood's article on the plans to remember the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007 (Museums Journal March 2006, p22) reinforces the majority view that the transatlantic slave trade is essentially a port cities issue.
Although the article featured Birmingham's Equiano exhibition, the overall impression was that there are few other places outside the port cities that need to consider the issue.
But I am the coordinator of a partnership of 11 museums, libraries and archives in Greater Manchester that has developed a project to show the much more pervasive effect the slave trade had on Britain's economic, social and cultural life.
The slave trade generated massive economic and industrial production, and arguably fuelled the industrial revolution. Wealth was generated from the production of copper, guns, ammunition, alcohol and cloth traded with Africa, and the processing of the raw products such as sugar, rum, cocoa and tobacco grown by slave labour that returned to Britain.
Money was also made by the associated industries, including shipbuilding, banking and insurance. Nearly every part of British society played a role in the slave trade, whether as producers or consumers, especially of sugar.
Manchester was heavily involved in the trade - both in supplying textiles for export to Africa via Liverpool and for manufacturing the raw cotton that returned from America. It was also a strongly
abolitionist town.
The Greater Manchester Revealing Histories project has already carried out research showing some of the less well-known aspects of the slave trade in the North West through its collections, and has begun to identify people connected to the slave trade such as the Greg family, who financed Quarry Bank Mill, now managed by the National Trust.
Objects connected to the trade that have come to light include textiles and tea sets, as well as a flour barrel (pictured) sent from the US to Rochdale at the time of the cotton famine.
The barrel is inscribed: 'I am one of the thousands that were filled with flour and sent by the Free States of America in the ship George Griswold to the starving people of Lancashire whose miseries were caused by the aggressive and Civil War of the slave owners in 1862-3-4.'
Manchester's industrial workers clearly saw an affinity between the rights of slaves and wider issues of civil reform and human rights. A flag at an 1823 Manchester Reform rally showed a maimed factory worker with the abolitionist phrase: 'Am I not a man and a brother?
Projects are planned throughout Cumbria, Lancashire and in East Anglia, where the emphasis will be on the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, particularly at the Wisbech and Fenland Museum.
An 1834 abolition arch in Stroud, Gloucestershire, once the grand entrance to a Georgian mansion, was restored with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2003 and could again provide a focus for regional activities in 2007.
Country estates, as well as city institutions, that made money from slavery could use the opportunity to reveal this darker side to their past. Hopefully, this history will find its place in the new developments of the Leeds Museum Discovery Centre and the Leeds City Museum opening in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Ports with less of an involvement in the trade than Liverpool, Bristol and London are also planning to acknowledge their role, including Plymouth, Portsmouth and Whitehaven. And London museums without strong maritime links, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Horniman, are actively engaging with the subject.
Beyond the museum sector, there are numerous other heritage initiatives, including Churches Together in England, which addresses the role of the church both as a perpetrator of slavery and a protagonist for abolition (www.setallfree.net).
The Revealing Histories project will continue to trace the history of the transatlantic slave trade through the collections in Greater Manchester and will make these connections explicit. We will work with a range of audiences, including young people, to develop new interpretations and narratives around the slave trade and its legacy in the build up to 2007 and beyond, which we believe is crucial.
The abolition of the slave trade by the British in 1807 was only the beginning of a process to rid the world of slavery: freedom in British colonies was not fully realised until 1838 (and lastly in the Americas in Brazil in 1888). We are still dealing with its legacy, and forms of slavery continue, necessitating the work of campaigning groups such as Anti-Slavery International and Rendezvous of Victory.
The end of slavery stimulated the growth of empire, global trade, and further colonial expansion. Revealing Histories will continue to research these trading relationships, connecting the global and the local, the economic to the social, allowing a re-presentation of British history in the 21st century.
Katherine Hann is the project coordinator for Revealing Histories.
For more information email katherine.hann@btopenworld.com
Although the article featured Birmingham's Equiano exhibition, the overall impression was that there are few other places outside the port cities that need to consider the issue.
But I am the coordinator of a partnership of 11 museums, libraries and archives in Greater Manchester that has developed a project to show the much more pervasive effect the slave trade had on Britain's economic, social and cultural life.
The slave trade generated massive economic and industrial production, and arguably fuelled the industrial revolution. Wealth was generated from the production of copper, guns, ammunition, alcohol and cloth traded with Africa, and the processing of the raw products such as sugar, rum, cocoa and tobacco grown by slave labour that returned to Britain.
Money was also made by the associated industries, including shipbuilding, banking and insurance. Nearly every part of British society played a role in the slave trade, whether as producers or consumers, especially of sugar.
Manchester was heavily involved in the trade - both in supplying textiles for export to Africa via Liverpool and for manufacturing the raw cotton that returned from America. It was also a strongly
abolitionist town.
The Greater Manchester Revealing Histories project has already carried out research showing some of the less well-known aspects of the slave trade in the North West through its collections, and has begun to identify people connected to the slave trade such as the Greg family, who financed Quarry Bank Mill, now managed by the National Trust.
Objects connected to the trade that have come to light include textiles and tea sets, as well as a flour barrel (pictured) sent from the US to Rochdale at the time of the cotton famine.
The barrel is inscribed: 'I am one of the thousands that were filled with flour and sent by the Free States of America in the ship George Griswold to the starving people of Lancashire whose miseries were caused by the aggressive and Civil War of the slave owners in 1862-3-4.'
Manchester's industrial workers clearly saw an affinity between the rights of slaves and wider issues of civil reform and human rights. A flag at an 1823 Manchester Reform rally showed a maimed factory worker with the abolitionist phrase: 'Am I not a man and a brother?
Projects are planned throughout Cumbria, Lancashire and in East Anglia, where the emphasis will be on the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, particularly at the Wisbech and Fenland Museum.
An 1834 abolition arch in Stroud, Gloucestershire, once the grand entrance to a Georgian mansion, was restored with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2003 and could again provide a focus for regional activities in 2007.
Country estates, as well as city institutions, that made money from slavery could use the opportunity to reveal this darker side to their past. Hopefully, this history will find its place in the new developments of the Leeds Museum Discovery Centre and the Leeds City Museum opening in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Ports with less of an involvement in the trade than Liverpool, Bristol and London are also planning to acknowledge their role, including Plymouth, Portsmouth and Whitehaven. And London museums without strong maritime links, including the National Portrait Gallery and the Horniman, are actively engaging with the subject.
Beyond the museum sector, there are numerous other heritage initiatives, including Churches Together in England, which addresses the role of the church both as a perpetrator of slavery and a protagonist for abolition (www.setallfree.net).
The Revealing Histories project will continue to trace the history of the transatlantic slave trade through the collections in Greater Manchester and will make these connections explicit. We will work with a range of audiences, including young people, to develop new interpretations and narratives around the slave trade and its legacy in the build up to 2007 and beyond, which we believe is crucial.
The abolition of the slave trade by the British in 1807 was only the beginning of a process to rid the world of slavery: freedom in British colonies was not fully realised until 1838 (and lastly in the Americas in Brazil in 1888). We are still dealing with its legacy, and forms of slavery continue, necessitating the work of campaigning groups such as Anti-Slavery International and Rendezvous of Victory.
The end of slavery stimulated the growth of empire, global trade, and further colonial expansion. Revealing Histories will continue to research these trading relationships, connecting the global and the local, the economic to the social, allowing a re-presentation of British history in the 21st century.
Katherine Hann is the project coordinator for Revealing Histories.
For more information email katherine.hann@btopenworld.com
