Liverpool and the slave trade
Next year sees the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the notorious slave trade.
A lot has been written about Liverpool’s involvement in this vile trade.
Slavery goes right back to the days of the pyramids and the Egyptians.
However when we move forward to European involvement we must study Liverpool’s part objectively.
At that time the city’s population would be about half a million, of which about 2% would be involved in slave trading.
These would be composed of rich well to do individuals with little or no scruples.
My great grandfather could have been a coal heaver or labourer living in a hovel going hungry and working for a pittance, and I doubt that like most of the population he ever benefited from this trade.
I had the pleasure of sitting in on a discussion with Mike McCartney, whose brother is of course Paul, one of the Beatles. Mike’s dad worked in the Cotton Exchange and in 1925 a prominent London newspaper wrote a tribute to those in the Exchange “These are men of honour and descendants of people who backed Abraham Lincoln in his fight against slavery in spite of it being detrimental to their jobs.”
I would like to think they were more representative of the city of Liverpool in relation to the traffic in human misery.
I would like to think also that after next year we consider putting this issue to rest.
Let us not forget, but let us all get on with amalgamating and putting right the wrongs that are taking place in today’s world.
They say that history can teach us valuable lessons. One article by Professor Jaqueline Nassy Brown in the Anthropological section of the University of California and entitled “Before Blackness, Beyond Diaspora: Cosmopolitanism in Liverpool’s Age of Sail” tells us;
‘early in my field work in 1991, one of my informants, Scott, The Black man took Nassy on a walking tour of Liverpool. He was born in Liverpool in 1932 and had lived there all his life. He took her to Pitt Street, that no longer exists. But he described a vivid verbal picture of Chinese and Indian people and a host of other national groups including Blacks. His description defied Black/White binaries completely. He described ‘mixing’. Black Liverpudlians tend to celebrate ‘mixing’ and always speak of it in the past tense. Another black informant, Morris was born in Liverpool in 1915 to white English mother and a Barbadian father. He was a seaman for 30 years. He says ‘I grew up in the heart of Chinatown, Pitt Street. It was an international neighbourhood. Every nationality of the world was there. Everyone intermingled and helped each other.
Atlanticist scholarship emphasizes the role of Black seamen in producing transnational community. The brought black music from the rest of the Black world and provided their children with clothes from abroad. They were also credited with fostering good community relationships by sharing the spoils of their voyages with others.
The night life then was centered around Granby Street. Some of the clubs were black owned but the whole scene was an international one. These clubs were not in any way ethnically, racially or nationally exclusive.
This glorious day on interracial harmony seemed to change in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s with the vast immigration of West Indian populations. They were a different black group from the originals. Morris who’s own father was from the West Indies says ‘ they came with a chip on their shoulders – they didn’t want to work – they came and gave a bad image.’ He says that they eventually made a ghetto out of Granby street.
The ‘new blacks’ could not become seamen – Liverpool had ceased being a major world port with all its’ cosmopolitanism. The ‘old blacks’ had fitted in well with all kinds. The ‘new blacks’ were so much more alienated both by their own choice and the increasing rise of nationalism in Britain and of course the decline of Liverpool as a major international shipping port!
Are there lessons to be learnt?
I tracked this piece down many moonsa go but being a Liverpool lad myself - it does evoke the Liverpool that I grew up in but I was on the white side and unfortunately too young when I left so never had the opportunity to sample that wonderful multicultural and cosmopolitan life style in a small enclave of the 'pool.
They must have been great times despite the poverty - anyone around here remember them and care to share?
I came to Liverpool this last weekend for a special visit. My great-great-grandfather,Theodore Drayton Grimke, arrived in the 1850s in Liverpool from Charleston in South Carolina, because Richard Evans, his father-in-law, gave him a position in his coal-mining company, based in Haydock and the surrounding area. The reason I am sending a message is because Theodore is listed in the 1860 Slave Schedule for Charleston County as a slaveholder with 45 slaves. I am descended not only from slaveowners but also abolitionists and members of the NAACP. Details of the family history are on my own website. I would recommend a book, which has been written by a Washington DC journalist named Mark Perry. The title of the book is: Lift Up Thy Voice: The Grimke Family's Journey From Slaveholders To Civil Rights Leaders.
I am advertising myself as a speaker and a researcher. Information can be found on the website.
I also suggest that you look at the links from the site.
I look forward to hearing from you in due course.
Best wishes,
Bill Drayton.