This section explores the relationship of the North East of England, and in particular Sunderland to the Transatlantic slave trade. Tyne and Wear Museums’ website, ‘Remembering Slavery’ should be used to extend knowledge and understanding of “the most extensive, brutal example of enslavement in the history of mankind. It involved the kidnap of 10-12 million African people.” The ‘Remembering Slavery’ website was developed in 2007 by TWMS as part of the bicentennial celebrations of the UK Parliamentary Act to Abolish the Slave Trade in 1807. The website includes opportunities to research, watch films and news reports and create your own online exhibition. http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/slavery/research http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/slavery/online-exhibition http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/slavery/your-exhibitions/make-your-own-exhibition.html http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/slavery/media-zone/ Slide 1: The Hiltons • The story of Sunderland’s ‘Black History’ begins with the Hilton Family in the 1600’s. The Hilton family home is now known as Hylton Castle (the ‘y’ replaced the ‘I’ in the 1600’s). • Hylton Castle is a well established landmark in Sunderland. It is an important historical site visited recently by BBC’s popular Time Team. The area of housing surrounding the castle is also known as ‘Hylton Castle’, a well established area in the city of Sunderland. • It is difficult to imagine, looking at the ruined castle today that it was once the home of a prominent North East family whose wealth, like that of other Sunderland gentry, was built upon the slave trade. • By the 1600’s the Hilton family were already prosperous. William Hilton was a mariner and salt merchant. In 1621 he left Sunderland for New England as part of a rescue mission for the ‘Mayflower’ settlers. William Hilton was the first person from Sunderland ever recorded to settle in America. He eventually settled in what would become New Hampshire. • It was common at that time for settlers to name areas of the ‘new world’ after one’s hometown or county e.g. ‘New Hampshire’. • Can you think of any other famous places in America named after British places? (New York, New Jersey’.) Page 1 of 19 • There are a number of County Durham place names in the area where William Hilton settled, suggesting that other people from the north east settled in this area as well. Activity: Research • Try looking for place names that you may recognise, on a modern map of America. See if you can recognise the names of British towns or counties. - Why do you think people called their settlements after these towns? - Do you think the areas had native American-Indian names – why were these not used? • You could extend your research to Australia and see if the settlers there did the same. Activity: Imagine • Imagine you are one of the first settlers on a distant planet. Draw a fictitious map of an area of this newly discovered land. Name 5 settlements on your map after places you know well. - Do you think when we start populating planets in the future we will call the settlements after our towns and cities? Slide 2: And So It Begins... • The Hyltons were seafarers who also forged links with the Caribbean. Anthony Hylton aquired a tobacco plantation and became governor of St Kitts in 1625. Many more of the Hyltons became settlers and farmers in America and The Caribbean. Their businesses grew and they needed more and more labour to farm the land. Many traders looked towards Africa as a source of free labour. • The painting on Slide 2 is by Stuart Henry Bell (1823-1896) and shows local people being forcibly taken from their homeland. This painting captures the experiences of the people being forced from their home. • Imagine the ‘slavers’ arriving in their huge ships carrying men with white skin, wearing strange clothes, speaking an incomprehensible language. - Did the ‘white men’ bring gifts to gain the confidence of the people? Were they welcomed as friends? - Could the African people begin to imagine what lay ahead of them as the white men drew their weapons and forced them onto their ships? Page 2 of 19 Activity: Write • Look at the painting and imagine you are hiding nearby and watching what is happening. • Answer the following questions: - Who are you? What is your name? My mother named me? I am the son of ??? - Where are you hiding? Among the thick vegetation, low next to the ground. - What can you see directly in front of you? Three white men drive people from my village forward toward the shore line where a boat is waiting. - Can you hear anything? The oars in water, a child whimpering, white men shouting in a strange language that I do not understand, the crack of a whip and cry of pain. The birds are silent. - Describe the time of day – the weather – the temperature? Still, calm, subdued, - Can you smell anything? The thick scent of jasmine, the sweat of white men, the smell of fear - What can you see in the distance? - What do you feel? I am helpless, I can do nothing but hide, what is happening, I do not understand - What do you do next? I lie weeping silently, weeping for my family who I will never see again. • Use the responses to create a piece of prose writing or poetry. Slide 3: People for Sale • Ship owners and merchants soon realised that the forcible kidnapping of people from the coastal regions of Africa could supply a very cheap source of labour and huge profits could be made. • Trading in human beings made many people in the North East of England very wealthy. In Europe and America there was a huge demand for commodities such as sugar, tobacco and cotton grown on plantations. This fuelled the demand for labour and created a new trans-Atlantic trading of African people. Once in the Americas, the Africans were sold as slaves to plantation owners at auctions that took place in the ports. The traders quickly became rich. Page 3 of 19 • The slaves were often branded and kept in shackles and chains, forged in the Cawley Ironworks in Gateshead, and supplied to the Americas on North East owned merchant vessels. • Back in Britain, traders, merchants, plantation owners and investors justified their actions by saying that they were improving the life of the African people, that they enjoyed a better life in America than they would have done in their own land. Activity: Imagine, Role-play and Discuss • Men, women and children were forcibly taken from coastal areas of Africa and transported on sailing ships in horrific conditions to England and then on to Europe, North America and the West Indies, where they were sold as slaves. • Imagine someone coming into your home, forcibly taking you away to a strange country and selling you to the highest bidder. - Does this still happen to people today? • Set up a role-play scenario to represent the kidnapping of people for slavery. You can set your scenario in either the past or present. Side 4: The Brookes Ship and Slide 5: Floating Coffins • The diagram on the slide shows the ‘Brookes’ ship. The Brookes ship was a ‘slaver’ and the diagram shows how people who were to be sold into slavery were transported to the Americas. • The Slave Trade Act of 1788 stated that the space allowed for a man was 1ft 4inches by 6 ft (40.6 cms x 183cms). Women and children had less space. If you look closely you can see that some of the people are shackled together. Many people died on the journey. Activity: Discuss • Former slave, Olaudah Equiano visited the North East in 1792. He spoke at meetings in Durham, Stockton and Newcastle (where Sunderland Quaker representative Thomas Richardson attended) campaigning against slavery. Olaudah supported the Slave Trade Act but others “feared that the act would establish the idea that the slave trade was not fundamentally unjust, but merely an activity that needed further regulation.” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulated_Slave_Trade_Act_of_1788 • Discuss why Olaudah might have supported the Act. Page 4 of 19 Activity: Measure • Sometimes the ships were called ‘floating coffins’. - Why was this? • Measure the size of the space that a man was allowed on a piece of paper, cut it out and place it on the floor. - Do you think this space is acceptable? • The Brookes Ship poster was used by anti-slavery campaigners to give strength to their argument that the slave trade was inhuman. - Why do you think the anti-slavery campaigners used this diagram to convince people that slavery was wrong. Do you think people would believe them? Activity: Role-play and Imagine • Lie down in rows according to the pattern of bodies on the slide. Imagine being in this position for weeks. Imagine not being able to do anything about your condition for there was no where to run. - How much room do you have? Are you comfortable? - What would happen if you were sick? (If slaves were ill they would simply be thrown overboard and left to drown.) Guilty by association? • Local families like the Hiltons owned or invested in sugar plantations in the Caribbean and the Americas. Individuals and companies throughout the North East of England grew extremely wealthy as merchant ships from the area transported slave- produced sugar, cotton, mahogany and rum to ports around the world. • Ships from Sunderland transported coal from local pits to the Caribbean Islands. This coal heated the boilers that converted the raw sugar cane into sugar. • The successful Crawley’s ironworks at Gateshead made shackles and neck collars for the slave trade as well as simple hoes and axes used in the back-breaking work converting marshland into rice plantations in South Carolina.