Welsh
Involvement in the Slave Trade
Thomas Phillips, Captain of the Slave ship Hannibal
Many Welsh sailors and captains took part in the slave trade but one in particular has become famous because he wrote a detailed diary of the slave voyage he made in the 1690s. Thomas Phillips from Brecon got money from the local MP and slave trader Sir Jeffery Jeffries to buy the Hannibal, a large slave ship.
He made one journey from Britain to Africa and then on to the Caribbean before returning, in ill health, to live out his days in Brecon. Captain's Walk in Brecon is still named in his honour
The Hannibal was a 450 ton ship with 36 cannon. The ship was owned by a cartel of merchants, and Phillips himself had a share in it too. He travelled to Africa on behalf of the Royal African Company of England.
We do not know how old he was during the voyage. He describes burying his brother at sea, at the age of only seventeen:
It was a time of war, and the Hannibal was attacked by a French warship. Philips had to be thick skinned in the face of death.
How useful are these sources for understanding life at sea at this time?
Question 1:
ë Using Sources 3 to 5, and the information below, is it possible to explain the attitude of Philips towards the Africans in his care?
Sources 1 to 4 are all taken from Phillips diary of his voyage.
But, Thomas Philips was not visiting African countries as a tourist, but to buy slaves, 692 of them to be sold in Barbados. Welsh cloth was among the goods he exchanged for the Africans. He describes the method of loading them aboard ship and feeding them, and forcing them to dance on the deck every night to keep them agile.
And yet, he branded each one of them "in the breast or shoulder, with a hot iron, having the letter of the ship's name on it".
When about three hundred of them died during the voyage, all he did was complain that this was "great detriment to our voyage, the Royal African Company losing ten pounds by every slave that died". And that was, he said, after he had suffered months of foul smells from "a parcel of creatures nastier than swine"!
His views didn't stop him taking part in the slave trade. He referred to the Africans on his ship as "cargo" and around 400 of them died on the way between the African coast and the Caribbean.
Question 2:
ë Select evidence from the information about Thomas Phillips that could be used as arguments for and against Wales apologizing for its role in the Slave Trade.
ë Write a paragraph to explain your judgment of Phillips and his actions.
Sources 7 and 8, both from Phillips diary of his voyage
How did some Welsh people profit from the Slave Trade?
We have already looked at Thomas Phillips of the Slave Ship Hannibal. But involvement in slavery benefited other Welsh people too. Here are some examples.
Richard Pennant – Lord Penrhyn (1737 – 1808)
Pennant’s family made a fortune from their Plantations in Jamaica that produced sugar and Rum.
He became Lord Penrhyn after marrying into the Welsh Warburton family. He owned land near Bangor, NW Wales, and it was here that he developed his slate mine business, using the profits from the slave trade to support it.
He built a port and ships to enable him to sell his slate around the world. Many Welsh people in the area depended on Pennant for their jobs.
Pennant was also a Member of Parliament, representing the major slave trading city of Liverpool for most of the decade 1780 – 90. He was a great supporter of the Slave Trade and owned hundreds himself, although he never visited Jamaica. He argued against those who would ban slavery, saying it would be financial disaster to do so.
Thomas Williams (1737 – 1802)” Twm Chwarae Teg”
He was a Welsh industrialist and, at the time of his death, the richest man in Wales. His workers called him “fair play Tom”, maybe jokingly as he had a reputation as one of Britain’s most ruthless businessmen.
Williams made his fortune in the copper industry, mainly from Parys Mountain Copper Mine on Anglesey. He built copper works at Flint and Penclawdd. Here he made brass and copper products that were often used in the slave trade as payment for slaves because these items were so popular with African rulers.
When Parliament discussed the ending of slavery in 1788, he argued against it, saying he had over £70 000 at stake.
Anthony Bacon (1718 – 1786)
The iron industry in Merthyr Tydfil was founded by a slave trader called Anthony Bacon. He made his money as a merchant trading in slave produced tobacco and he was also an important government contractor.
His contracts included supplying food to troops guarding slave forts on the African coast. And he provided "seasoned and able working Negroes" for government works on Caribbean sugar islands. He was paid a monthly fee for these slaves, which stopped if they died or ran away.
Bacon was already an important and rich merchant when he came to Merthyr. He used some of his money to build the Cyfarthfa Ironworks at Merthyr in 1765. His iron works employed many Welsh people.
Bacon turned Cyfarthfa into the most important centre for gun making in Britain, but the slave trade did not only provide the money to set up the works - the slave trade also needed guns. Bacon supplied cannon for slave ships to defend themselves.
The demand for guns was not the only link between slavery and the iron industry. Iron bars - known as "voyage iron" were used as a kind of currency on the coast of Africa and could be traded for slaves by merchants. In the late 17th Century, 12 iron bars could buy an adult male slave.
The plantations, were slaves worked, needed iron for tools as well as for chains and torture instruments.
An image of a slave in chains
Sir Foster Cunliffe (1755 – 1834)
One of the richest men in the Wrexham area, he lived off the family fortune made by his grandfather, also called Foster Cunliffe, who was one of the major slave traders in Liverpool. He seems to be ashamed of this part of his family history as there is no mention of it in his book on his family. He lived at Acton Hall, one of the grandest houses in Wrexham, and also owned Pant yr Ochain Hall, just outside the town, which is now a very popular pub.
Left: the gates to Acton Hall, all that remains of Cunliffe’s grand home.
Right: The Pant yr Ochain Hall, now a pub.
Other examples include;
Nathaniel Wells, Britain’s first black sheriff and slave owner (1780 – 1852)
In 1800, Wells was the richest black man in Britain. He was the son of Welsh plantation owner William Wells from Cardiff. William had at least 6 children with different slaves he owned.
Nathaniel was sent to Britain to be educated at Oxford and settled in Wales at Chepstow when his father died. Nathaniel inherited his plantations and continued slavery on them, showing no mercy to the Africans who worked there. In fact, his plantations had very high death rates and saw very harsh punishments of slaves, that were later used as arguments against slavery.
When slavery was abolished by the government, Wells was given compensation for the money he had lost. He later became Governor of St. Kitts, another ex-slave island in the Caribbean and died in Bath, England in 1852.
Nathaniel Wells’ tombstone in Bath.
Tasks:
a) From the information you have read, make a list of the various ways in which Wales and its people were involved in the Slave Trade.
b) Can you find information about ordinary (i.e. not rich) people? What do you think these people may think about the Slave Trade?
c) From the information, choose the 2 people you think are most guilty because of their involvement in Slavery and explain why you chose them.
d) At this stage, after what you have learnt, do you think Wales should apologize for its role in the Slave Trade? Why?
What part did Wales play in the Abolition of Slavery?
Many Welsh people helped to stamp out slavery. Here are some of the more well known:
Iolo Morganwg 1747 – 1826
Edward Williams was born in Llancarfan, near Cowbridge, but he is better known as Iolo Morgannwg. He was a political radical, poet and stonemason and formed the Gorsedd of Bards.
Morganwg tried to avoid everything to do with slavery. His shop in Cowbridge refused to stock slave grown sugar (the first fair trade shop in Wales) and he refused to sell his book to Bristol slave merchants.
But the slave trade touched many families and his two brothers were sugar planters in Jamaica, owning 240 slaves.
At the time Morganwg refused to take any money from them, despite being very poor
Thomas Coke 1747 – 1814
Another Welsh abolitionist who got into similar difficulty was Thomas Coke from Brecon in South Wales. Coke became the right hand man of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church.
Coke was strongly anti-slavery and preached against it when he was sent to the US to set up the Methodist church there. But he ran into trouble when he reached the slave owning areas of the country.
The threat was not carried out - but incidents like this forced Coke to stop his anti-slavery preaching.
Question 1: What do Sources 1 and 2 tell you about Morganwg and Coke and their views on slavery?
But by 1815, Morganwg had been left £100 in the will of one of his brothers. He took it, even though this money had been made from slavery.
Coke himself even had a plantation on St. Vincent and bought slaves to work on it. There was such a protest from other opponents of slavery that Coke had to give it up and claimed he only took it to treat the slaves nicely.
A plantation in the Caribbean
Question 2: Does this new information make you think differently about Morganwg and Coke? Explain why.
Morgan John Rhys (1760 – 1804)
Born near Monmouth, he became a Baptist Minister. He published the first Welsh language magazine (Y Cylchgrawn Cymraeg) in 1793. Before this he is thought to have published, anonymously, pamphlets and poems that were anti – slavery.
Left: The symbol of The Anti-Slavery Movement
Morgan’s magazine published the first life story by an ex-slave from America, The Life of David George.
Question 3: How useful do you think accounts like Source 3 and the picture above would be in the campaign against slavery?
In 1794 Morgan John Rhys moved to the new United States to look for somewhere to set up a Welsh colony. He settled in Georgia, where there were many Plantations. Morgan set up a church for the black people and even planned a school for their children. He had to abandon the idea after being threatened by slave owners.
Robert Everett (1791 – 1875)
Born not far from Rhyl in Gronant, Everett became the Chapel Minister at Utica near New York, USA in 1838. He began publishing and preaching anti – slavery ideas.
He was a very important influence on the Welsh people who moved to America, encouraging them to oppose slavery. He came to be seen as the leader of Welsh Americans and told them to support the Republican Party which was against slavery. The Republican Abraham Lincoln became President in 1860, this led to the American Civil War (North v South) which eventually saw Slavery outlawed in the US.
John Elias from Anglesey preached in Liverpool against slavery in the 1790’s.
Question 4: Can you think of at least two different words to describe Elias based on the information in this source? Explain why you have chosen them.
Thomas Clarkson (1760 – 1846)
Although not Welsh, Clarkson was very important in the movement to abolish slavery. He was born in Wisbech and attended Cambridge University, before joining the Church. At the age of 25 he had a spiritual experience and believed God had told him to end the Slave Trade. Clarkson made contact with Granville Sharp and together they formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787.
Clarkson toured Wales in 1824 to campaign for the ending of Slavery. In many places, ordinary workers and religious people supported him. However in North Wales, he was attacked by supporters of the powerful Pennant family.
Question 5: Why do you think Clarkson met such different receptions on his tour of Wales?
Jessie Donaldson (1809 – 1899)
A schoolmistress from Swansea, she went to live in Ohio in the 1850’s which was next to the slavery state of Kentucky. Thousands of slaves escaped from Ohio on the “underground railroad”. This was a series of safe houses that would help to smuggle them to freedom. The Donaldson home was the first of these after crossing the Ohio River and they helped in the escape of many slaves. This continued until slavery was abolished in the US in 1866. Jessie returned to Swansea and is buried in the Sketty part of the city.
Today many people in Swansea want to name a road after her in Swansea’s new multi million pound Waterfront development.
Tasks
ë Choose three people from the information you have read that you think are useful as evidence that Wales played a part in the abolition of slavery. Briefly explain why you have chosen each one.
ë Does the information on this sheet make it easier for you to decide if Wales should apologize for its role in the Slave Trade? Explain your answer. (Think about the individuals and what they did, why did they do it e.g. religious beliefs, were they taking risks etc.)
Thomas Phillips, Captain of the Slave ship Hannibal
Many Welsh sailors and captains took part in the slave trade but one in particular has become famous because he wrote a detailed diary of the slave voyage he made in the 1690s. Thomas Phillips from Brecon got money from the local MP and slave trader Sir Jeffery Jeffries to buy the Hannibal, a large slave ship.
He made one journey from Britain to Africa and then on to the Caribbean before returning, in ill health, to live out his days in Brecon. Captain's Walk in Brecon is still named in his honour
The Hannibal was a 450 ton ship with 36 cannon. The ship was owned by a cartel of merchants, and Phillips himself had a share in it too. He travelled to Africa on behalf of the Royal African Company of England.
We do not know how old he was during the voyage. He describes burying his brother at sea, at the age of only seventeen:
It was a time of war, and the Hannibal was attacked by a French warship. Philips had to be thick skinned in the face of death.
How useful are these sources for understanding life at sea at this time?
Question 1:
ë Using Sources 3 to 5, and the information below, is it possible to explain the attitude of Philips towards the Africans in his care?
Sources 1 to 4 are all taken from Phillips diary of his voyage.
But, Thomas Philips was not visiting African countries as a tourist, but to buy slaves, 692 of them to be sold in Barbados. Welsh cloth was among the goods he exchanged for the Africans. He describes the method of loading them aboard ship and feeding them, and forcing them to dance on the deck every night to keep them agile.
And yet, he branded each one of them "in the breast or shoulder, with a hot iron, having the letter of the ship's name on it".
When about three hundred of them died during the voyage, all he did was complain that this was "great detriment to our voyage, the Royal African Company losing ten pounds by every slave that died". And that was, he said, after he had suffered months of foul smells from "a parcel of creatures nastier than swine"!
His views didn't stop him taking part in the slave trade. He referred to the Africans on his ship as "cargo" and around 400 of them died on the way between the African coast and the Caribbean.
Question 2:
ë Select evidence from the information about Thomas Phillips that could be used as arguments for and against Wales apologizing for its role in the Slave Trade.
ë Write a paragraph to explain your judgment of Phillips and his actions.
Sources 7 and 8, both from Phillips diary of his voyage
How did some Welsh people profit from the Slave Trade?
We have already looked at Thomas Phillips of the Slave Ship Hannibal. But involvement in slavery benefited other Welsh people too. Here are some examples.
Richard Pennant – Lord Penrhyn (1737 – 1808)
Pennant’s family made a fortune from their Plantations in Jamaica that produced sugar and Rum.
He became Lord Penrhyn after marrying into the Welsh Warburton family. He owned land near Bangor, NW Wales, and it was here that he developed his slate mine business, using the profits from the slave trade to support it.
He built a port and ships to enable him to sell his slate around the world. Many Welsh people in the area depended on Pennant for their jobs.
Pennant was also a Member of Parliament, representing the major slave trading city of Liverpool for most of the decade 1780 – 90. He was a great supporter of the Slave Trade and owned hundreds himself, although he never visited Jamaica. He argued against those who would ban slavery, saying it would be financial disaster to do so.
Thomas Williams (1737 – 1802)” Twm Chwarae Teg”
He was a Welsh industrialist and, at the time of his death, the richest man in Wales. His workers called him “fair play Tom”, maybe jokingly as he had a reputation as one of Britain’s most ruthless businessmen.
Williams made his fortune in the copper industry, mainly from Parys Mountain Copper Mine on Anglesey. He built copper works at Flint and Penclawdd. Here he made brass and copper products that were often used in the slave trade as payment for slaves because these items were so popular with African rulers.
When Parliament discussed the ending of slavery in 1788, he argued against it, saying he had over £70 000 at stake.
Anthony Bacon (1718 – 1786)
The iron industry in Merthyr Tydfil was founded by a slave trader called Anthony Bacon. He made his money as a merchant trading in slave produced tobacco and he was also an important government contractor.
His contracts included supplying food to troops guarding slave forts on the African coast. And he provided "seasoned and able working Negroes" for government works on Caribbean sugar islands. He was paid a monthly fee for these slaves, which stopped if they died or ran away.
Bacon was already an important and rich merchant when he came to Merthyr. He used some of his money to build the Cyfarthfa Ironworks at Merthyr in 1765. His iron works employed many Welsh people.
Bacon turned Cyfarthfa into the most important centre for gun making in Britain, but the slave trade did not only provide the money to set up the works - the slave trade also needed guns. Bacon supplied cannon for slave ships to defend themselves.
The demand for guns was not the only link between slavery and the iron industry. Iron bars - known as "voyage iron" were used as a kind of currency on the coast of Africa and could be traded for slaves by merchants. In the late 17th Century, 12 iron bars could buy an adult male slave.
The plantations, were slaves worked, needed iron for tools as well as for chains and torture instruments.
An image of a slave in chains
Sir Foster Cunliffe (1755 – 1834)
One of the richest men in the Wrexham area, he lived off the family fortune made by his grandfather, also called Foster Cunliffe, who was one of the major slave traders in Liverpool. He seems to be ashamed of this part of his family history as there is no mention of it in his book on his family. He lived at Acton Hall, one of the grandest houses in Wrexham, and also owned Pant yr Ochain Hall, just outside the town, which is now a very popular pub.
Left: the gates to Acton Hall, all that remains of Cunliffe’s grand home.
Right: The Pant yr Ochain Hall, now a pub.
Other examples include;
- Goronwy Owen from Anglesey who had four slaves on his tobacco plantation in Virginia in the 1760s
- Cadwaladr Morgan, a Quaker from the Bala area who sold slaves in Philadelphia at the beginning of the 18th century
- Owen Owens who became the owner of a number of tobacco plantations in the Savannah area after migrating from Denbigh in the 1770s
- Nathaniel Phillips from Pembrokeshire who owned a plantation and many slaves in Jamaica. He made a fortune in the sugar and rum trade and argued strongly against the abolition of slavery.
Nathaniel Wells, Britain’s first black sheriff and slave owner (1780 – 1852)
In 1800, Wells was the richest black man in Britain. He was the son of Welsh plantation owner William Wells from Cardiff. William had at least 6 children with different slaves he owned.
Nathaniel was sent to Britain to be educated at Oxford and settled in Wales at Chepstow when his father died. Nathaniel inherited his plantations and continued slavery on them, showing no mercy to the Africans who worked there. In fact, his plantations had very high death rates and saw very harsh punishments of slaves, that were later used as arguments against slavery.
When slavery was abolished by the government, Wells was given compensation for the money he had lost. He later became Governor of St. Kitts, another ex-slave island in the Caribbean and died in Bath, England in 1852.
Nathaniel Wells’ tombstone in Bath.
Tasks:
a) From the information you have read, make a list of the various ways in which Wales and its people were involved in the Slave Trade.
b) Can you find information about ordinary (i.e. not rich) people? What do you think these people may think about the Slave Trade?
c) From the information, choose the 2 people you think are most guilty because of their involvement in Slavery and explain why you chose them.
d) At this stage, after what you have learnt, do you think Wales should apologize for its role in the Slave Trade? Why?
What part did Wales play in the Abolition of Slavery?
Many Welsh people helped to stamp out slavery. Here are some of the more well known:
Iolo Morganwg 1747 – 1826
Edward Williams was born in Llancarfan, near Cowbridge, but he is better known as Iolo Morgannwg. He was a political radical, poet and stonemason and formed the Gorsedd of Bards.
Morganwg tried to avoid everything to do with slavery. His shop in Cowbridge refused to stock slave grown sugar (the first fair trade shop in Wales) and he refused to sell his book to Bristol slave merchants.
But the slave trade touched many families and his two brothers were sugar planters in Jamaica, owning 240 slaves.
At the time Morganwg refused to take any money from them, despite being very poor
Thomas Coke 1747 – 1814
Another Welsh abolitionist who got into similar difficulty was Thomas Coke from Brecon in South Wales. Coke became the right hand man of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church.
Coke was strongly anti-slavery and preached against it when he was sent to the US to set up the Methodist church there. But he ran into trouble when he reached the slave owning areas of the country.
The threat was not carried out - but incidents like this forced Coke to stop his anti-slavery preaching.
Question 1: What do Sources 1 and 2 tell you about Morganwg and Coke and their views on slavery?
But by 1815, Morganwg had been left £100 in the will of one of his brothers. He took it, even though this money had been made from slavery.
Coke himself even had a plantation on St. Vincent and bought slaves to work on it. There was such a protest from other opponents of slavery that Coke had to give it up and claimed he only took it to treat the slaves nicely.
A plantation in the Caribbean
Question 2: Does this new information make you think differently about Morganwg and Coke? Explain why.
Morgan John Rhys (1760 – 1804)
Born near Monmouth, he became a Baptist Minister. He published the first Welsh language magazine (Y Cylchgrawn Cymraeg) in 1793. Before this he is thought to have published, anonymously, pamphlets and poems that were anti – slavery.
Left: The symbol of The Anti-Slavery Movement
Morgan’s magazine published the first life story by an ex-slave from America, The Life of David George.
Question 3: How useful do you think accounts like Source 3 and the picture above would be in the campaign against slavery?
In 1794 Morgan John Rhys moved to the new United States to look for somewhere to set up a Welsh colony. He settled in Georgia, where there were many Plantations. Morgan set up a church for the black people and even planned a school for their children. He had to abandon the idea after being threatened by slave owners.
Robert Everett (1791 – 1875)
Born not far from Rhyl in Gronant, Everett became the Chapel Minister at Utica near New York, USA in 1838. He began publishing and preaching anti – slavery ideas.
He was a very important influence on the Welsh people who moved to America, encouraging them to oppose slavery. He came to be seen as the leader of Welsh Americans and told them to support the Republican Party which was against slavery. The Republican Abraham Lincoln became President in 1860, this led to the American Civil War (North v South) which eventually saw Slavery outlawed in the US.
John Elias from Anglesey preached in Liverpool against slavery in the 1790’s.
Question 4: Can you think of at least two different words to describe Elias based on the information in this source? Explain why you have chosen them.
Thomas Clarkson (1760 – 1846)
Although not Welsh, Clarkson was very important in the movement to abolish slavery. He was born in Wisbech and attended Cambridge University, before joining the Church. At the age of 25 he had a spiritual experience and believed God had told him to end the Slave Trade. Clarkson made contact with Granville Sharp and together they formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787.
Clarkson toured Wales in 1824 to campaign for the ending of Slavery. In many places, ordinary workers and religious people supported him. However in North Wales, he was attacked by supporters of the powerful Pennant family.
Question 5: Why do you think Clarkson met such different receptions on his tour of Wales?
Jessie Donaldson (1809 – 1899)
A schoolmistress from Swansea, she went to live in Ohio in the 1850’s which was next to the slavery state of Kentucky. Thousands of slaves escaped from Ohio on the “underground railroad”. This was a series of safe houses that would help to smuggle them to freedom. The Donaldson home was the first of these after crossing the Ohio River and they helped in the escape of many slaves. This continued until slavery was abolished in the US in 1866. Jessie returned to Swansea and is buried in the Sketty part of the city.
Today many people in Swansea want to name a road after her in Swansea’s new multi million pound Waterfront development.
Tasks
ë Choose three people from the information you have read that you think are useful as evidence that Wales played a part in the abolition of slavery. Briefly explain why you have chosen each one.
ë Does the information on this sheet make it easier for you to decide if Wales should apologize for its role in the Slave Trade? Explain your answer. (Think about the individuals and what they did, why did they do it e.g. religious beliefs, were they taking risks etc.)