Profile

What was the time period like?:

The late 18C and early 19C was a time of great and often, frightening, change, both in Europe and the Americas. There was, often violent, political and social change so much so that one historian Eric Hobsbawm has called it the “Age of Revolutions.” First, there was the American Revolution, which saw Britain lose its colonies in North America and the USA became officially independent in 1783. In France, in 1789, there were widespread hunger and social unrest. The middle classes protested against the rule of the aristocracy (the noble people) and the monarchy (the king). It turned into a long revolution that saw France transform from a kingdom to a republic (a sort of democracy with elections). Many aristocrats but even more poor people were killed and executed. In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte took over power and eventually turned France into an empire (a sort of kingdom) and started many wars in Europe and elsewhere.

A third revolution, which has often been ignored in Europe and North America, took place in Haiti in the Caribbean. It was a French colony and. with its large sugar plantations, the most profitable European colony. But the wealth was built completely on slavery. Transported and enslaved Africans had to work on the plantations. They were tortured and made to work so hard that often died at a young age. In 1791, the enslaved Africans started a large revolt and burned the plantations and killed the slaveholders. This was the beginning of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). The black fighters ended slavery, defeated Spanish, British and French troops and created a new state Haiti. This is the first and only state in the Americas that was founded by people of African descent. It shocked slaveholders, businessmen, and governments in the Atlantic world. But for people of African descent, it formed a great inspiring example of self-liberation from slavery and racism.

Wedderburn refers to the Haitian Revolution several times. In his journal, The Axe Laid to the Root (1817),  he threatens the Jamaican slaveholders, if they won’t free their enslaved Africans, they will end up killed like the slaveholders in Haiti. In this advertisement for a debate in his chapel in a hayloft in Soho in London, Wedderburn sums up the previous debate if an enslaved person had the right to kill his ‘master’ if he does not free him or her. Wedderburn claims that several people from the audience said they will help the enslaved in the Caribbean to free themselves by force as the Haitians did:

A handbill (flyer) announcing a debate in Wedderburn’s Hopkins Street chapel in London in 1819

Slavery was the basis for the economy of the Atlantic world. It made Europe rich and West Africa poor. The European slave traders robbed West Africa of its younger, economically active, people and started wars so that there will more African captives. By contrast, in Europe, the slave trade and slavery created huge wealth but largely not for the poor but for the middle classes and the aristocracy. Britain would not be ‘great’ without the slave trade and slavery, meaning as wealthy and powerful as it became. Many of the grand houses in the countryside were built or rebuilt with the money from slavery and entire British cities became wealthy through the slave trade such as Bristol or Liverpool which can still be seen in the elegant buildings and churches. Even where I write these lines, in an office in the Bluecoat Art Centre in Liverpool, there is a history of slavery. It started out in early 18C as a school for orphans (children who lost their parents) but the money came from the slave trade.

At the same time, the slave trade also led to a migration of people of African descent to Europe, including Britain. Liverpool has one of the oldest black communities in Europe. While most of the African captives were transported to the Americas, there were enslaved Africans in Britain. While some people continue to claim that there were no slaves in Britain, this is simply untrue. Some of them were being sold in coffee houses (forerunners of cafes) and advertised in local newspapers. This is an example from the Liverpool newspaper the Williamson Advertiser (1766) announcing the sale of 11 newly transported Africans in a city-centre cafe:

An advertisement from the “Williamson’s Liverpool Advertiser” (12/9/ 1766), announcing the sale of 11 captive Africans

As long as there was slavery (until 1838 in GB), the freedom even of those black people who were by law classed as ‘free’ was never secure. By the end of the 18C, there were larger black populations in Britain. They largely lived in cities, with an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people of African descent in London. Most lived in poverty and there were only a few cases of Black Britains who made some more money. Two examples from the 18C are the formerly enslaved servant, writer and musical composer Ignatius Sancho (c. 1729-80) and the formerly enslaved writer and campaigner against the slave trade and slavery Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745-97). (both featured on this site) While Sancho was the first black person in England to be allowed the vote (you had to be rich to be allowed to vote), Equiano left his daughter around £80,000 in today’s money that he had made from selling his slave narrative and talks promoting it and the end of the slave trade.

By contrast, Wedderburn left in harsh poverty for his entire family. His work as a tailor did not pay very well. With the growing industrialisation of Britain (much of the money to pay for it came from slavery), craftsmen suffered a loss of pay and were often out of work. Telling the story of his life in The Horrors of Slavery (1824), he remembers how he went to his white father in Scotland to ask for help; Robert’s wife had a newborn baby and he was out of work. His father called him “a lazy fellow” and had his servants send him away with a sip of beer and “a cracked sixpence.” Wedderburn suggests that his “worthy father” is a typical slaveholder, rich but morally corrupted. What Wedderburn makes very clear through the examples of his shameless father, is how British wealth is based on slavery and moral corruption. The lack of any morals makes the rich mean and treat not only the enslaved very badly but also the poor whites.