Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery

To a postgraduate history seminar at UCC. Nini Rodgers (Queens University Belfast) on Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 1612-1865. She’s just had a book published.

From the 17th century, ports all along the Atlantic seaboard from Copenhagen to Cadiz participated in the slave trade. But not in Ireland.  Why not?  Britain didn't allow free trade for Ireland until 1780, following Irish free trade agitation in the 1770’s by Irish merchants.  This engraving from 1780 celebrates the campaign’s success. It depicts Hibernia waving a Free Trade banner and attended by her brave volunteers.

1780 : Hibernia attended by her brave volunteers
exhibiting her commercial freedom

The brave volunteers in question being an American Indian presenting an animal pelt, an indeterminate woman presenting a bolt of cloth, and most valuable by far, a black slave presenting a golden urn which we can presume contains sugar or the profits thereof. Sugar was the 18th century oil, taking over from spices and gold.

In the background standing watch over proceedings are two British soldiers, while a merchant vessel flies an ensign sporting a harp surmounted by a crown.

Because Ireland was prevented under British law from participating in the slave trade, Irish slavers traded from Bristol, Liverpool or Nantes. 

The domestic Irish merchant class never, in the event, succeeded in participating in the slave trade, which was abolished in the UK in 1807. Their attempt to enter the trade came too late. By 1780 Liverpool had the market sewn up.  They did try to set up slaver companies in Belfast and Limerick but they didn’t get off the ground.  By 1780 the slave trade was economically old fashioned.  Better things to invest in supplying industrialised Britain. Moreover, ideologically, the slave trade was becoming suspect at this time. 

Nini spent a few minutes on the Irish attitude to slavery. Anti-slavery not a popular movement in Ireland.  In the US, poor Irish immigrants were quite keen to join in a slave-owning society, liked having someone to look down on, were pro-slavery.  Thought it hypocritical that there should be all this hullabaloo about slavery whilst the Irish were left to starve in the Famine, and were treated worse than slaves in New York.  I must return to this sometime.

One postgrad complimented Nini on her book and commented that this is the way Irish history should go. We need to disentangle ourselves from victimology and recognise that we have a history like any other nation, with heroes and villains, exploiters as well as exploited, he said.

I have fuller notes, the above is just a taster.  I forget how I came to hear about this seminar, and it was far from clear that I was actually meant to be there, but the organiser made me most welcome.  1807 strikes me as being a very odd date to choose to abolish the slave trade. I really must look into this subject some more.

Caliph Omar, the poor woman and the sack of rice

Went to a Muslim meeting at UCC last week.  An imam in a Nehru jacket told us some nice stories about the early Caliphs.  I was on my way somewhere else so I just slipped in the back of the meeting for half an hour, a pity I couldn't stay longer. Here is one of the stories he told. 

Caliph Omar wondered about the conditions of the poor people of Damascus. His advisers assured him all was well but he wasn’t convinced.  In order to see for himself, he put aside his fine robes, and wandered incognito through the streets, mingling with the people.  One night in a poor district of the city, he heard children wailing.  Pushing aside the curtain of the of the house where the noise came from, he found a woman boiling stones in a pot. He asked, why are the children wailing and why are you boiling stones?  She said, the children are hungry. They think it’s food, and by the time they find out they will have cried themselves to sleep.  Caliph Omar was distressed to discover such poverty in his city.  He rushed to his palace, called for a sack of rice, threw it on his back, and weighed down with this heavy load, trudged through the streets towards the poor district.  He chanced to meet a Muslim man who recognising him, said : Caliph, let me carry your burden.  The Caliph replied : No, for who will carry the burden of my sins when I meet my Lord?

I enquire in Spain about the Visigoths

Denia and its castle

Just back from the Costa Blanca, a place called Denia.  In general Costa Blanca is dire but there are nuggets.  Also it’s near Granada and the Alhambra, which is just as wonderful as people say.  

The known history of Denia dates only from the Arab Conquest (8th-13th Centuries). Denia Castle (built by the Arabs during the 11th Century) houses a small Archaeological Museum.  I was interested in the Visigoths, who preceded the Arabs, and I asked the museum director about them.  They didn't leave any traces in this area and I didn't quite follow his explanation of why not, but when I asked how the Visigoths lived he said they carried on Roman civilisation, and said their advent in Spain was only a "political change".  If I understood him right he even referred to the 6th and 7th centuries as the "late Roman period".

Later, I checked this out with an archaeologist friend of mine who confirmed that the accepted orthodoxy now is that the incoming "barbarians" were in effect an elite (much as the Normans were in England in 1066) and they took over a lot of the existing administration and infrastructure.  Pottery production, for instance, continued in the Roman pottery production centres and new tastes and styles demanded by the new elites were assimilated into the existing ceramic traditions.  Much the same goes for agriculture, architectural styles and land organisation.  So the museum director who referred to the 6th and 7th centuries as "late Roman" reflects this point of view. 

Improperly pronounced in the West

Extract from Insight guide to China, 8^th ed 1998, p 156 :-

The third Ming emperor, Yongle, is credited with the planning of the capital. In 1421 he moved his government from Nanjing to Beiping (Northern Peace) and renamed it Beijing (Northern Capital).  Improperly pronounced in the West, the city became known as Peking, a name that persists in such instances as Peking duck.

It’s this improperly pronounced in the West business that gets my goat.  How do we pronounce the capital of France? Sweden’s largest port?  Sweden itself for that matter or Germany or Spain?  The capital of Austria?  The principal cities of Italy?  Are all of these improperly pronounced?  If so it ought to cease forthwith.