Bristol slave trade
Bristol, a port city in the South West of England, on the banks of the River Avon, has been an important location for maritime trade for centuries.
Slaves were an increasingly important commodity at the time, since the English colonisation of the Caribbean and the Americas in the 17th century had created sugar, rum, tobacco, and cotton plantations, which all needed plentiful cheap labour.
[5][4] What is thought to have been the first "legitimate" Bristol slave ship, the Beginning, owned by Stephen Barker, purchased a cargo of enslaved Africans and delivered them to the Caribbean.
Due to the over-crowding and harsh conditions on the ships, it is estimated that approximately half of each cargo of slaves did not survive the trip across the Atlantic.
[13] The ships set sail to St Kitts, Barbados and Virginia to supply English colonies requiring free or cheap labour to work on sugar and tobacco plantations, with enslaved Africans.
[10] Alongside slaves, the colonies were supplied with a wide range of goods for the plantations by the Bristol ships; this included guns, agricultural implements, foodstuffs, soap, candles, ladies' boots and "Negro cloths" for the enslaved, from which the British economy benefited.
[14] This meant that the Bristol economy was intrinsically linked to slave-produced Caribbean goods such as sugar, rum, indigo and cocoa.
[4] Stories of slave rebellions, runaways and attacks on plantation owners in the colonies were printed in the British press to perpetuate the myth that Black people were unreasonable and violent.
[4] Using the wealth generated from the slave trade, merchants invested in purchasing land, cultural buildings and upgrading ships in Bristol.
[14] Whilst the Bristol economy benefited, it was primarily the merchants that owned the ships who made significant material gains in their personal family wealth.
Given their status with holding leadership positions in Bristol, the Society was able to successfully oppose movements to abolish the slave trade in the late 1700s in order to maintain their power and source of wealth.
[24] The folk duo Show of Hands have written and performed a song entitled "The Bristol Slaver" covering the subject.
[26] This workshop encouraged students to investigate historic objects, modern attitudes and opinions and to consider how Bristol was changed by its involvement in the slave trade.
