On reading Born in Blackness
when sitting on the sofa in Stroud
Some insights developed from reading
Born in Blackness, Africa, Africans and the Modern World
written by Howard W French
That have a resonance for me in Stroud:
1. I’d always imagined that the phrase ‘sold down the river’ had its origins in some Thames -side Dickensian cockney cant, rather than the transportation of enslaved persons down the Mississippi. (See later for more.)
2. At the height of British industrial dominance – say, roundabout the 1851 Great Exhibition - nearly twenty per cent of the British working class was employed in textile production.
3. And at that time, around eight per cent of the population in the United States were enslaved persons, the majority of whom were out there in the cotton fields, feeding the mills of Manchester (‘Cottonopolis’) and Lancashire … ‘King Cotton’ … bales loaded on to ships at New Orleans bound for Liverpool.
4. Now on to the relationship between Protestantism and capitalism: forget the deconstruction of Robinson Crusoe that foregrounds an ideology of self-help: shades of Tawney and Weber with their emphasis on the ideological link between Protestantism, thrift, energy, self-improvement, investment and economic growth … forget the novel’s reference to how Crusoe was captured and enslaved … for he himself was on a slaving voyage – rather like Tobias Smollett’s Roderick Random.
Instead focus on the exploitation of Man Friday: the personification of the enslavement that led to British industrial dominance and also instead focus on the ‘book farming’ of the sugar factories of Mr Drax; the accounting that led to the consequential chain of speculative investments via the Keynesian multiplier effect that fuelled British capitalism. In short: focus upon enslavement. (Breaking news: Jamaica and Barbados governments are about to seek compensation from a descendent of Mr Drax: Richard Drax MP.)
5. Back to point number 3: it was slavery in the USA that provided the cotton for Lancashire and it was the dominance of cotton in the north of England that led to the dire poverty in and around Stroud, as evidenced by the 1839 Miles Report; by the assisted emigration; by the heavy transportation, and by the workhouse. So, enslavement in the USA directly affected Stroud: glocal history: decolonising the landscape - you might argue that the nickname ‘Beggarly Bisley’ owes its provenance to the Mississippi.
6. Now on to the railways. The GWR Bristol-Paddington main line was, of course, supported, promoted and funded by many in Bristol who did so very well indeed out of the abolition of enslavement. Baker up at Lypiatt also invested in railways in the Forest of Dean. But I want to jump on to the ‘Railway Mania’ of the 1840s. This pattern of boom and slump and wave of speculative investment has usually been viewed through the prism of ‘Speculation’ – as though finance capitalism was the cause itself of the manic waves of investment in the 1840s. And that optic has ignored the question of where did all that surplus money come from that was sloshing around waiting for an avenue of investment. The Gladstone family used much of their ill-gotten ‘compensation’ money to invest in railways in the north and the midlands. But what of all those almost countless numbers who were looking for a return on their capital investments in railway construction? Where did a lot of that money come from? It couldn’t come out of thin air – it had to come from somewhere. So, once more, I say: forget Victorian values of thrift, frugality, self-help and deferred gratification – these are contributary factors, it is true, but only alongside one of the absolutely fundamental determinants of British economic expansion: enslavement in the West Indies and the USA. And forget the self-regarding morality and sanctimony involved in the 1807 abolition of the slave trade and the 1833 abolition of slavery – Britain was hand in glove with American whips and manacles long after those dates. And enslaved persons (as property) were used as collateral (chattel collateral) on loans from banks for future American cotton and plantation and transport investments that all helped fuel British economic growth – hardly Protestant self-sufficiency.
7. The USA abolished the importation of enslaved persons in 1808 in the wake of Britain’s abolition of the slave trade in 1807.But with the USA’s Louisiana Purchase from France, enslaved persons were transported south along the Mississippi to the Delta (‘sold down the river’). This was a huge forced migration – with a huge forced migration for First Nation peoples too. But for those of my generation who were brought up on a diet of Westerns on ITV, we learned none of that of course. Instead, there were wagon trains and then the cult series Maverick with the eponymous gambler on a paddle steamer playing carefree cards along the Mississippi: ‘Natchez to New Orleans, Living on Jacks and Queens, Maverick is a legend of the West’ … the series didn’t tell us that Natchez and New Orleans were major markets for the buying and selling of enslaved persons.
8. Nor did the textbooks tell us as children and adults that it wasn’t just Eli Whitney’s cotton gin that was responsible for the huge leap in cotton production from circa 1790-1860. Those textbooks omitted the huge increase in productivity caused by the increasing exploitation of enslaved persons; which is to say, a huge increase in brutality. It was all about Eli Whitney and the cotton gin. It was all about technology. The brutality of the cotton fields never featured.
9. Nor did the textbooks (and I studied A level American history) tell us that the Louisiana Purchase was a consequence of the successful revolution in St Domingo – Jefferson was worried that the density of the population of enslaved persons could lead to a similar revolt; hence the purchase and transportation and dispersal. So much for ‘Manifest Destiny’ and taking advantage of Napoleon’s need for money.
10.Conclusion: in the past, when I’ve thought about the historic connections between Stroud, the five valleys and the United States, I usually return to Oakridge (Charles Mason’s birthplace) and think about the Mason-Dixon Line - but it will be different henceforth, thanks to the broadening of my horizons after reading Born in Blackness, Africa, Africans and the Modern World by Howard W French. My mind has been blown and my horizons widened. ‘Every day might be a school day’, as the proverbial wisdom has it. But not every book is a new window on the world and an absolute revelation.
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