Global Threads

By Ruby Duncan

Ruby Duncan, who interned at the Science and Industry Museum in September 2023, reflects on her time at the museum, the research she carried out into Manchester’s links to slavery during her internship, and the connections to her own family’s heritage.

I started my internship in Manchester on a typically grey day in the city. I had just got back from Jamaica and was longing for the sun I had spent my time under. The trip to my family’s motherland had further opened my eyes to the legacy of the slave trade and more modern forces that continue to repeat the same patterns of exploitation. Partly due to this context, I was incredibly excited to find out that the project I was going to work on during my internship was all about Manchester’s links to slavery; inevitably, I was going to be finding out more about the Caribbean. As a history student I find it incredibly engaging to pursue knowledge of the past. As an individual with both Jamaican and Scottish parentage, the chance to further explore Britain’s role in the transatlantic trade promised to be equally interesting and emotionally challenging. I had always been aware of the Manchester’s significance in the industrial revolution, never had I thought that this could be separated from slavery, but I was not aware to what extent these narratives intertwined. I was not aware that the city I so fondly enjoy my time in had once been known as ‘Cottonopolis’.

The Guardian’s Cotton Capital series proved to be an invaluable resource throughout my project. Particularly on episodes of the podcast when Jamaica hosted the focus, I found myself longing for the island as I heard the soothing accents of the interviewees and experts. It had been my first visit to the country that held so much of my own history. My grandparents had taken care of me during my stay and as the journalist spoke to local elders I thought more about the significance of their return to the Caribbean. In previous centuries the movement of black people along the routes defined by the slave trade had been involuntary. Now I sat in the office in Manchester having just returned from Montego Bay, staying with relatives who started their lives in the Caribbean, had spent decades in Britain and had chosen, with upmost agency to return to their beloved region. Since their return over 30 years ago they have gone back and forth between these geographical pillars that held so much history for me to explore. I thought of the patterns of travel they endured for our family’s future and the way they overlapped with those same patterns of the past. The Atlantic Ocean holds great prominence in the diaspora’s stories.

“The Atlantic Ocean holds great prominence in the diaspora’s stories.”

Beyond reminiscing, the wide range of stories released by the Guardian remained compelling. Hearing about the African-American abolitionists that favoured Manchester as a location to speak, I was intrigued by Sarah Parker Remond. She set off for Britain in 1858. Her reputation as a great orator in America was sustained through her tour in Britain. From Massachusetts she came to Manchester in the name of her people, acknowledging the city’s unparalleled dominance in the cotton industry. It was on the 14^th of September in 1859 that she spoke in Manchester’s Athenaeum. “Not one cent of that money ever reaches the labourers” Remond proclaimed as she spoke of the profits the city enjoyed. Audiences would’ve been familiar with this exploitation but what further distinguished Sarah Parker Remond was her commitment to highlighting the experiences of enslaved women. Other abolitionists shied away from such discussions, but Remond refused to. Entrenched in the slave trade, in the African ports, the slave ships and the plantations, was the ferocious presence of sexual exploitation. “Women are the worse victims of the slave power” she stated, blatant in her presentation of the truth. Remond was bold in her speech, winning over audiences, inspiring her listeners to side with the abolitionist cause. I felt inspired myself to hear about this woman who could so powerfully command crowds whilst she stood at 5”3, with a dark complexion and her gender so apparent. She crossed the same ocean that my grandparents are so familiar with, that our ancestors had no choice in doing, and that I had just flown over.

Thinking of Remond’s solidarity with her sisters involved in the slave trade, I began to think of how I could centre women in my research as well. To do justice to the story of slavery I believe the honesty that has consistently been denied to our diaspora is paramount. Narratives of slavery are completely dominated by men; they were the drivers of the trade, but such stories often undermine the involvement women had in the purchasing, owning and treatment of the enslaved. A separate discussion would find time to explore how this itself has been a legacy of slavery, for these women weren’t denied the innocence of femininity that the enslaved were.

“To do justice to the story of slavery I believe the honesty that has consistently been denied to our diaspora is paramount.”

The figure of Eleanora Atherton allowed me to highlight the active participation women had in the trade. Atherton was an infamous philanthropist in Manchester, with “generous public spirit”. Born in Manchester Cathedral in 1870 she pledged allegiance to her city through continuous gifts of charity. Her generosity impacted many lives in the city, but it is hard to celebrate her work when the ability to do so came in part from the profits of two plantations she owned in Jamaica. She was funding charity at the same time speakers such as Remond were coming to her city to encourage people to act. Atherton’s acts of benevolence were limited to the communities she recognised as people. Undeserving were the dehumanised individuals she kept in the Caribbean.

I collated my findings together to present the team with an opportunity for visitor interaction. Asking visitors to consider how these women’s narratives, and what they represent meant at the time and what they mean today. Sarah Parker Remond spoke for universal sisterhood whilst Elenora Atherton undermined it. Their relation to each other seems incredibly distant and at the same time inseparable. Two women who commanded great influence and power, but in very different spaces. We are increasingly becoming familiar with figures like Atherton who represent both generosity and cruelty; Edward Colston immediately comes to mind; how do we recognise them in honest ways when we are used to positive portrayals? How do we make sure their generosity does not consume their legacies when they were active participants in such abuse. Atherton’s profits crossed the ocean; extracted from her plantations, and fed into her local community, tracing the path of the cotton. The same ocean kept Remond afloat as she headed for the industrial cities that continued her people’s plight. I’m sure she wondered how much more would be demanded of the abolitionist cause before the ocean’s routes were defined by a different trade. My time in Jamaica was incredibly affirming but with the legacy of colonialism never escapable it left me with many questions of what could be done to acknowledge the island’s rich, but often devastating history. The ocean is integral to the stories we tell of both Britain and Jamaica. People and product were carried by the waves, it is this that has facilitated the stark inequality between the islands today, in truth it is this inequality that encouraged my grandparents to leave behind the Caribbean to seek out opportunities.

“The ocean is integral to the stories we tell of both Britain and Jamaica. People and product were carried by the waves, it is this that has facilitated the stark inequality between the islands today…”

We can look to these histories, as I did through my project to honour the past, and find understanding in the present.