Cymraeg

The Welsh and American Slavery

Llefydd i ymweld - Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool was in an ideal situation to profit from the slave trade due to the fact that it was so close to the centres that produced the goods used to purchase slaves; for example:

Copper and bronze from Staffordshire, Cheshire and Flintshire
Guns from Birmingham

Ship at the quayside
in Philadelphia

And then when the ships returned from America with cargo such as cotton, for example, there was a ready market for it in the mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

The importance of the slave trade to the city

A photo of Jerry Hunter at Liverpool Docks

Liverpool docks today

By the last twenty years of the slave trade, a slave ship left Liverpool every three days, on average. Ships from Liverpool were responsible for carrying half the slaves sent across the Atlantic by British traders. It was a very important trade for the city. 25 of those appointed to the post of Lord Mayor of the city between 1700 and 1820 profited directly from the slave trade.

Slaver History Trail

The Slaver History Trail starts from Pier Head and goes past the homes of a number of the city's slave traders, as well as giving a more general taste of what sort of place Liverpool was in those days.

August 23rd

Every year on August 23rd (International Memorial Day for Slavery and its Abolition) events are arranged in Liverpool to commemorate the slave trade and to remind the city's residents of what some of their forebears did. (August 23rd was the date on which the slaves on the island of San Domingo rebelled, starting a new chapter in the battle against slavery)

Merseyside Museum, Liverpool

Photo o Jerry Hunter tu allan i Amgueddfa'r Môr, Lerpwl

Maritime Museum, Liverpool.
It was in the dock in front of
the Museum that the 18th
century slave ships were
repaired.

There is an entire gallery dedicated to the slave trade - not much mention is made of Liverpool's role in the trade, and some have criticised the museum for discussing the slave trade separately, rather than as a central part of the history of the port (see "Blind History" by Marcus Wood).

However, this exhibition tries to convey how people were uprooted from their homes in Africa and transported in atrocious conditions across the Atlantic, and is a useful introduction to the subject.

liverpoolmuseums.org.uk