Enquiries and suggestions for resources are welcome. Contact Lisa Whistlecroft direct if you know her email address, otherwise via the 'Contact us' button on the Bailrigg Local Meeting site.
'English Quakers on a Tobacco Plantation in Barbados' from Orbis habitabilis (1680) by Carel Allard
“God-fearing men going about their godless business” (James Walvin, 2008)
"whereby one man selleth another, as he doth the beast that perisheth,
without any better pretensions to a property in him than that of superior force"
(Minute of London Yearly Meeting, 1758)
An annotated list of links to various resources
that Friends taking part in the Journey for Learning
have found helpful
There is very little that is unique to this site but bringing it together in
one place may save interested Friends a lot of web-searching!
Everything above the divider line can be accessed directly from this web page. Below the divider are highly relevant books, but you will need to get them from libraries or bookshops. Check your Meeting's library first!
The Transatlantic Slave Trade
The Slave Voyages Database
Explore the Origins and Forced Relocations of Enslaved Africans Across the Atlantic World. (Webpage)
Quaker slave traders and slave owners
Slavery in the Quaker World - Katharine Gerbner
'Quakers in Philadelphia immigrated not from England, but from the Caribbean island of Barbados. Pennsylvania may have been the first “official” Quaker colony, but it was not the first Quaker community in the Americas. There was a large Quaker presence on Barbados, where thousands of Friends lived. When Pennsylvania was founded in 1682, William Penn and others used their Quaker connections in Barbados to purchase enslaved Africans. As Pennsylvania’s social and economic structure developed, ties with the West Indies and other trade outlets flourished. The trade with Barbados was a source of pride and a symbol of prosperity for many English Quakers who considered slavery to be necessary for economic development.' Friends Journal, September 1, 2019 (web article)
Re-examining our history - Ann Morgan
Facing our Past: a discomforting Quaker slavery history. Siobhán Haire asks Ann Morgan, of Lancaster Local Meeting, to share her research about Quaker involvement in the slave trade in the 18th century. A presentation with many slides of information specifically about Lancaster-based Quaker slave traders and plantation owners. (Video)
Lancaster Quaker Slavers - Ann Morgan
Four slides from Ann Morgan's talk at Yearly Meeting in 2022, with details of the Lancaster Quaker families active in the slave trade.
Timeline of Lancaster Quakers' involvement in slavery and abolitionism - Ann Morgan
A detailed timeline showing how some Quakers of Lancaster city and the local area invested in the transatlantic slave trade, bought and managed plantations in the Caribbean, and did all they could to obstruct national Quaker attempts to end these practices.
Abolition
The condemnation of slavery minuted by London Yearly Meeting in 1758
'We fervently warn all in profession with us that they be careful to avoid being anyway concerned with reaping the unrighteous profits arising from the iniquitous practice of dealing in negroes and other slaves; whereby, in the original purchase, one man selleth another, as he doth the beast that perisheth, without any better pretensions to a property in him than that of superior force, in direct violation of the gospel rule which teacheth all to do as they would be done by and to do good unto all; Being the reverse of that covetous disposition which furnisheth encouragement to those poor ignorant people to perpetuate their savage wars in order to supply the demands of this most unnatural traffic, whereby Great numbers of mankind, free by nature, are subjected to inextricable bondage, and which hath often been observed to fill their possessors with haughtiness, tyranny, luxury and barbarity, corrupting the minds and debasing the morals of their children to the unspeakable prejudice of religion and virtue, and to the exclusion of that holy spirit of universal love, meekness and charity, which is the unchangeable nature and glory of true Christianity.'
Benjamin Lay
The “Quaker Comet” was the greatest abolitionist you’ve never heard of - Marcus Rediker
Previously overlooked by historians on both sides of the Atlantic, Benjamin Lay was one of the first radicals to argue for an end to slavery. For this, he was disowned by his Meetings in both England and the USA. Smithsonian Magazine Secrets of American History, 2017 (web article)
The Legacies of British Slavery
Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery
This Centre at University College London traces the impact of slave-ownership on the formation of modern Britain. The maps and databases give information on the ownership of plantations and estates in the British Caribbean. Where possible, the addresses of British slave-owners and of estates in Jamaica, Barbados and Grenada have been located and mapped. There is also information on the evolution of firms receiving slave compensation and their redeployment of slave wealth into other investments. (Website and database)
Runaway Slaves in Britain
This is a searchable database of newspaper adverts about runaway slaves in Britain. It is also an extensive website with much information about the status and treatment of slaves and indentured people brought to Britain from the Caribbean to work as labourers and domestic servants.
A search of the database has adverts for two runaways from Lancaster in 1761 and 1764 and one who 'speaks broad Lancashire Dialect' in 1765, from the house of Revd. Mr. Clarkson, Rector of Heysham.
The contacts for the 1761 runaway include Capt. Robert Dodson of Lancaster. The contacts for the 1764 runaway include Mr. James Hinde (Merchant, Lancaster). (Web site and database)
Plantation Slavery and Landownership the West Highlands and Islands: Legacies and Lessons
Scores of estates in the West Highlands and Islands were acquired by people using the equivalent of well over £100m worth of riches connected to slavery in the Caribbean and North America. Many would go on to be leading figures in the Highland Clearances, evicting thousands of people whose families had lived for generations on the newly procured land. (Research paper: Iain MacKinnon and Andrew Mackillop, 2021.)
Webinar: Plantation Slavery and Landownership the West Highlands and Islands
Webinar with the authors of the research report. The discussion includes contributions from the leader of the National Trust for Scotland’s ‘Facing Our Past’ project and the policy director of Community Land Scotland. (Video)
Northwest England-specific: the gunpowder and cotton industries
The Lake District and Atlantic Slavery
Lakeland was intimately connected to the Atlantic World through the manufacturing of gunpowder for the slave trade. In 1764 a group of businessmen led by John Wakefield, a local Quaker, founded a new gunpowder mill at Sedgwick, just south of Kendal, to supply this trade. (Essay: Nicholas Radburn, senior lecturer in Atlantic History at Lancaster University, Yale University Press 2023.)
Cotton Capital – The Guardian newspaper’s exploration of its slavery roots
An extensive exploration of the Guardian's early history and the wealth built through slavery - and their policy responses now. (Web pages)
Lancaster-specific
Lancaster Black History Group
A local grassroots community group founded in June 2020 after Black Lives Matter protests in Lancaster. Their mission is to fight racism through education and they produce resources with and for schools. There are several recent articles on Lancaster's slavery businesses. (Website)
Facing the Past
Facing the Past is an arts and research programme to reflect, reveal and redress omissions in the way the City of Lancaster has commemorated its role as the fourth largest slavery port in the UK. (Website)
St Mary's Lancaster (The Priory) in The Age of Transatlantic Slavery - Melinda Elder
'This new research paper, a major piece of historical research, was commissioned by Facing the Past and first published in 2023. Melinda Elder is currently Honorary Research Fellow in the History Department at Lancaster University. She has researched the region’s connections with transatlantic slavery for 40 years. She is author of The Slave Trade and the Economic Development of Eighteenth-Century Lancaster (1992) and has also written on Morecambe Bay’s connections with the Liverpool slave trade and on aspects of Lancaster’s merchant community.' (PDF document)
Other Churches' Actions
The Church of England
Church Commissioners for England warmly welcomes Oversight Group’s report
Official CoE announcement and press release - the report's recommendations include:
• Recognition that £100m initially earmarked by the Church Commissioners is not enough, relative to the scale of the Church Commissioners’ endowment or of the moral sin and crime of African chattel enslavement, and that the organisation, in partnership with others, should target an initiative of £1bn and above;
• That the timeline for the delivery of the fund should be accelerated and delivered faster than the nine years originally envisaged;
• A call for the Church of England to fully acknowledge and apologise for the harms caused by its historic denial that Black Africans are created in the image of God, for its deliberate actions to destroy diverse African religious belief systems and to facilitate work that builds the spiritual connection of Africa and the African diaspora with the Gospel and the diverse spiritual practices of African forebears.
The Report - healing, repair and justice (Web pages - official announcement and report, 4 April 2024)
Reparation
Gordon Cowans' talk on the Churches' Reparation Action Forum and its 7-point Action Plan
In January 2024 the Journey for Learning group was joined on Zoom by the Revd Dr Gordon Cowans, Moderator of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, and co-founder of the Churches' Reparation Action Forum. His talk, introduced by Ann Morgan, was a passionate and inclusive invitation to join in the reparation work being undertaken by the churches in Jamaica. It also included an outline of CRAF's 7-point Action Plan, of which the first point is the need for an apology. (Video)
- Churches' Reparation Action Forum - 7 Point Plan for Reparations
(PDF document) - Rationale for the Churches' Reparation Action Forum 7 Point Plan
(PDF document)
A Quaker Take – a discussion about reparations
What are reparations? And what’s the role of faith communities in this conversation? Jon Martin speaks to Edwina Peart, BYM Inclusion and Diversity Coordinator, and Rebecca Woo, Campaigns Coordinator, about the reparations conversation that is just beginning amongst British Quakers. (Audio)
Reparation: Resources to Support Exploration
An extensive section of the Britain Yearly Meeting website with numerous links to a wide variety of resources. (Webpage)
NEW Latest Report from the BYM Reparations Working Group - Progress on reparations
Following the commitment from Yearly Meeting in 2022, BYM Trustees agreed to establish a Reparations Working Group (RWG). The group's remit is to explore how reparations might be made for the harm done by British Quakers through the transatlantic chattel slave trade, colonialism, and economic exploitation. The group members are Ann Morgan, Marghuerita Remi-Judah, Ann Floyd, Christine Habgood-Coote, Debby Flack, Klaus Huber, Paul Whitehouse and Susan Seymour. This is their latest update of February 2024. (Web page)
NEW Two new videos from the BYM Reparations Working Group. Five RWG members were involved in making them, sharing their own connections with reparation, and reading out the group's initial statement.
View them on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/quakersinbritain/rwg (Video - 22 minutes)
and https://vimeo.com/quakersinbritain/rwgstatement. (Video - 4 minutes)
Germantown Quakers plan to give $500,000 as reparations to Black neighbours
A Meeting in Philadelphia working with local Black communities, offering support in kind and in time as part of a long-term collaborative project.
The Repair Campaign
The Repair Campaign is a social movement for reparatory justice in the Caribbean, guided by the CARICOM Reparations Commission. 'Genocide, chattel enslavement and colonialism inflicted deep and enduring damage on the people of the Caribbean, while providing significant financial benefits to the colonisers. Our goal is to amplify Caribbean voices calling for reparations and produce evidence-based Socioeconomic Reparatory Justice Plans'.
BBC 'HARDtalk' - Sir Hilary Beckles: Reparations for slavery
An interview with Hilary Beckles, author of the book Britain's Black Debt, on the subject of reparations.
Phil Chandler has suggested that it is interesting to pay attention to the way the conversation unfolds, as well as to what is said. (Audio)
The Brattle Report on Reparations for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean
Report, published June 2023 (PDF document)
'UK cannot ignore calls for slavery reparations, says leading UN judge'
Report in The Guardian on senior United Nations judge Patrick Robinson's response to the publication of the Brattle Report. Reparation for transatlantic slavery ‘is required by history and is required by law’ (Guardian Webpage)
'Don’t listen to the critics: reparations for slavery will right historical wrongs'
Opinion piece by Kenneth Mohammed in The Guardian in response to the publication of the Brattle Report. 'Brattle’s research highlights the £20m paid to British enslavers in 1833, an amount that translates to £17bn today. This compensation, extracted through a Bank of England loan, continued to be shouldered up to 2015 by British taxpayers, including the Windrush generation and other descendants of enslaved people. It is a stark reminder of the unbroken chains that bind the present to a past that must be reconciled.' (Guardian Webpage)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Moral Agency and the Role of Victims in Reparations Programs
A series of case studies of various large-scale reparations programmes that have succeeded and that have failed - with recommendations as to how future programmes might succeed. (Research paper: Carlton Waterhouse, Associate Professor of Law, Florida International University, 2009.)
The Case for Reparations (US context) - Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Atlantic magazine's collection of articles by Ta-Nehisi Coates (a former national correspondent for The Atlantic), and responses to them. The pages are heavily infested with advertising but the articles are powerful. (Web pages)
Apologising
Churches and para-church organizations are urged to summon the moral courage to confront the
realities of the past complicity and, in recognizing the persistent deleterious impact of the
legacies, commit to publicly atone for their historical participation in these dehumanizing
atrocities. Slavery was an affront to human dignity against which, in unity, the children of God
must stand. (Point 1 of the Churches' Reparation Action Forum's 7 Point Plan for Reparations)
Governments
The Netherlands
Speech by Prime Minister Mark Rutte about the role of the Netherlands in the history of slavery
'In the following speech Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologises for the past actions of the Dutch State: to enslaved people in the past, everywhere in the world, who suffered as a consequence of those actions, as well as to their daughters and sons, and to all their descendants, up to the present day.' December 2022 (Web page with transcript and Youtube video with English subtitles)
Cities
Edinburgh
Edinburgh apologises for the city’s past role in sustaining slavery and colonialism
'Edinburgh’s Lord Provost Robert Aldridge opened today’s meeting of the City of Edinburgh Council by apologising on behalf of the city for its past role in sustaining slavery and colonialism. The civic apology follows ten recommendations and an action plan made by the independent Edinburgh Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group which were accepted by the Policy and Sustainability Committee in August. The first recommendation made by the review group was that the Council publicly acknowledges the city’s past role in sustaining slavery and colonialism, and issues an apology to those places and people who suffered.' October 2022 (Web page with the statement by the Lord Provost in full)
Churches
Church of England
An apology issued for the church's complicity in sustaining - and profiting hugely - from the trade
'Rowan Williams, the archbishop, told the synod that the church ought to acknowledge its corporate and ancestral guilt: "The Body of Christ is not just a body that exists at any one time; it exists across history and we therefore share the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors, and part of what we can do, with them and for them in the Body of Christ, is prayerful acknowledgment of the failure that is part of us, not just of some distant 'them'. To speak here of repentance and apology is not words alone; it is part of our witness to the Gospel, to a world that needs to hear that the past must be faced and healed and cannot be ignored ... by doing so we are actually discharging our responsibility to preach good news, not simply to look backwards in awkwardness and embarrassment, but to speak of the freedom we are given to face ourselves, including the unacceptable regions of ... our history."' February 2006 (Guardian report: web page)
Baptist Union
The Apology for Slavery
'Text of the Resolution agreed by the Baptist Union Council in November 2007 recognising our nation’s
participation in the transatlantic slave trade.' November 2007 (Web page)
Newspapers and Companies
The Guardian
The Scott Trust's apology and statement of its plan for reparation
'Ole Jacob Sunde, the chair of the Scott Trust, said: “The Scott Trust is deeply sorry for the role John Edward Taylor and his backers played in the cotton trade. We recognise that apologising and sharing these facts transparently is only the first step in addressing the Guardian’s historical links to slavery. In response to the findings, the Scott Trust is committing to fund a restorative justice programme over the next decade, which will be designed and carried out in consultation with local and national communities in the US, Jamaica, the UK and elsewhere, centred on long-term initiatives and meaningful impact.”
Katharine Viner, the editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, wrote: “We are facing up to, and apologising for, the fact that our founder and those who funded him drew their wealth from a practice that was a crime against humanity. As we enter our third century as a news organisation, this awful history must reinforce our determination to use our journalism to expose racism, injustice and inequality, and to hold the powerful to account.”
Alongside an apology “to the affected communities identified in the research and surviving descendants of the enslaved for the part the Guardian and its founders had in this crime against humanity”, the trust also apologised for early editorial positions that served to support the cotton industry, and therefore the exploitation of enslaved people.' March 2023 (Guardian web page)
Universities
Yale University issues apology for role in slavery
Yale University issued an apology for its connection to slavery after several years of research and study that it said it undertook into its formative ties to the slave trade. 'Today, on behalf of Yale University, we recognize our university's historical role in and associations with slavery, as well as the labor, the experiences, and the contributions of enslaved people to our university's history, and we apologize for the ways that Yale's leaders, over the course of our early history, participated in slavery.' February 2024 (Reuters web news item)
More links to come...
Land Reform in Scotland - a model for success?
These are some links to the land reform processes in Scotland that enable communities to purchase land. This has been set up to reverse part of the socioeconomic impact of the Clearances. Community Land Scotland has written multiple reports which demonstrate some of the benefits of this type of process.
Community Land Scotland
The membership organisation that represents community land owners in Scotland. (Website)
The Scottish Land Fund
The Scottish Government's Land Reform Policy - description of the purpose & basic processes of the Scottish Land Fund, which is funded by the The National Lottery Community Fund. (Webpage)
Becoming an Anti-Racist Church
Perceiving the Temperature of the Water The 2022 Swarthmore Lecture by Helen Minnis. (Video)
- The 2022 Swarthmore Lecture web pages
A dedicated section of the Woodbrooke website with videos of the six pre-lecture conversations and downloadable copies of all the handouts for the workshops described in the book. (Webpage) - The 2022 Swarthmore Lecture book, containing the text of the lecture, an extensive essay about the preparatory work for the lecture, and detailed descriptions of workshops addressing the issues raised in the lecture is linked below in the Books section.
Racism
Runnymede Trust
Contemporary, readable findings and reports to challenge structural racism in Britain. (Website)
The Institute of Race Relations (Website)
Thoughts, writings and speeches of A.SIVANANDAN, 1923−2018
The writings of A Sivanandan, long-time director of the Institute of Race Relations and a key thinker and activist on racism in Britain. (Website)
Somatic Abolitionism: Resmaa Menakem & Gabor Maté YouTube talk (2023) about inter-generational trauma, health outcomes and systemic racism in the USA. (Video)
Books
There are always more books but this is a start. Recommendations encouraged.
Perceiving the Temperature of the Water - Helen Minnis
The 2022 Swarthmore Lecture book, containing the text of the lecture, an extensive essay about the preparatory work for the lecture, and detailed descriptions of workshops addressing the issues raised.
Woodbrooke, ISBN: 9781739226008
Paperback £10 from the Quaker Bookshop
The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist - Marcus Rediker
'The Fearless Benjamin Lay chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular and astonishing man - a British Quaker dwarf who became one of the first ever to demand the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. He performed public guerrilla theatre to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity. He wrote a fiery, controversial book against bondage, lived in a cave, made his own clothes, refused to consume anything produced by slave labour, championed animal rights, and embraced vegetarianism.'
Verso, 2023. ISBN 9781786634726
Paperback + free ebook Regular price £14.99 Sale price £11.99; Ebook Regular price £10.00 Sale price £8.00
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa – Walter Rodney
'An ambitious masterwork of political economy, detailing the impact of slavery and colonialism on the history of international capitalism. In this classic book, Rodney makes the unflinching case that African maldevelopment is not a natural feature of geography, but a direct product of imperial extraction from the continent, a practice that continues up into the present.'
Verso, 2018. ISBN 9781788731188
Paperback + free ebook Regular price £16.99 Sale price £13.59; Ebook Regular price £10.00 Sale price £8.00
Capitalism and Slavery – Eric Williams
'Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams's landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism, and has influenced generations of historians ever since. Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the 18th and 19th centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision. Most significantly, he showed how slavery was only abolished when it ceased to become financially viable, exploding the myth of emancipation as a mark of Britain's moral progress.'
Penguin Books, 2022. ISBN 9780241548165
Paperback £9.99; EPUB from £4.99
Britain's Black Debt: Reparations for Caribbean Slavery and Native Genocide – Hilary Beckles
'This is the first scholarly work that looks comprehensively at the reparations discussion in the Caribbean. Written by a leading economic historian of the region, a seasoned activist in the wider movement for social justice and advocacy of historical truth, Britain’s Black Debt looks at the origins and development of reparations as a regional and international process. Weaving detailed historical data on Caribbean slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, Beckles sets out a solid analysis of the evidence. He concludes that Britain has a case of reparations to answer.'
The University of the West Indies Press, 2013. ISBN 9789766402686
Available from various bookshops in the UK.
How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean: A Reparation Response to Europe's Legacy of Plunder and Poverty - Hilary Beckles
'We are now in a time of global reckoning for centuries of crimes against humanity perpetrated by European colonial powers as they built their empires with the wealth extracted from the territories they occupied and exploited with enslaved and, later, indentured labour. The systematic brutality of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and the plantation economies did not disappear with the abolition of slavery. Rather, the means of exploitation were reconfigured to ensure that wealth continued to flow to European states.'
The University of the West Indies Press, 2021. ISBN 9789766408695
Paperback and eBook available from various bookshops in the UK.
Slave Ship Sailors and Their Captive Cargoes, 1730-1807 - Emma Christopher
'Despite the vast literature on the transatlantic slave trade, the role of sailors aboard slave ships has remained unexplored. This book fills that gap by examining every aspect of their working lives, from their reasons for signing on a slaving vessel, to their experiences in the Caribbean and the American South after their human cargoes had been sold. It explores how they interacted with men and women of African origin at their ports of call, from the Africans they traded with, to the free black seamen who were their crewmates, to the slaves and ex-slaves they mingled with in the port cities of the Americas. Most importantly, it questions their interactions with the captive Africans they were transporting during the dread middle passage, arguing that their work encompassed the commoditisation of these people ready for sale.'
Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 9780521679664
The Slave Trade and the Economic Development of 18th Century Lancaster - Melinda Elder
1992. Now out of print. Hardback copies available from various sources all at over £100. Academic folk with access to JSOR may be able to read it there.
Slavery, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution - Maxine Berg & Pat Hudson
'In their remarkable new book, Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson ‘follow the money’ to document in revealing detail the role of slavery in the making of Britain’s industrial revolution. [...] In textile mills, iron and copper smelting, steam power, and financial institutions, slavery played a crucial part. [...] Even London’s role as a centre for global finance was partly determined by the slave trade as insurance, financial trading and mortgage markets were developed in the City to promote distant and risky investments in enslaved people. This is a bold and unflinching account of how Britain became a global superpower, and how the legacy of slavery persists.'
Polity, 2023 ISBN 9781509552689
Hardback £25.00; ebook £17.99
Should Current Generations Make Reparation for Slavery? - Janna Thompson
'During the age of empire, millions of Africans were subjected to forced abduction, misery and death as part of the brutal Atlantic slave trade. However, since the perpetrators are long dead, should current generations make reparation for this historic injustice? In this book, Janna Thompson uses three case studies – France’s treatment of Haiti, Britain’s role in the African slave trade, and the plight of African Americans ‒ to address these questions. She makes a nuanced case for the necessity of reparations, but argues that the exact form they take should vary from case to case, depending on factors both principled and practical. This engaging book is a highly readable introduction to the issues for students and general readers grappling with the complexities of reparative justice and our responsibility for the darkest aspects of our past.'
Polity, 2018 ISBN 9781509516421
Paperback £9.99, eBook £8.99
What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition - Emma Dabiri
'In this incisive, radical and practical essay, Emma Dabiri - acclaimed author of Don't Touch My Hair - draws on years of research and personal experience to challenge us to create meaningful, lasting change.'
Penguin Books, 2021. ISBN:9780141996738
Paperback £7.09