Review: “Slavery Obscured, Slavery Remembered: Remembering Histories of Enslavement in Bristol”

By Natty Croucher, Year 3 History

In a talk on the 28th October, Dr Richard Stone, Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol, explored the legacies and histories of enslavement in the city. Dr Stone specialises in Bristol’s maritime history and has focussed on the role and memories of the city’s links to the transatlantic traffic in enslaved persons.

 The lecture’s title references Dr Madge Dresser’s book Slavery Obscured: The Social History of the Slave Trade in Bristol, and within it Dr Stone revealed the many ways in which city’s connections with the slave trade have been “hidden from the naked eye”. The realities and memory of Bristol’s past is only beginning to be highlighted in the face of recent historical study and public demand.

 Essential to Dr Stone’s lecture was the argument that Bristol’s relationship with the trade in enslaved persons, which was “fundamental” to the city’s growth and commercial success in the 17th and 18th centuries, has had, for much of the period since, no “visible” memory. Such a lack of “reminding sites” that would “trigger associations of the past” means that much history has been forgotten and ignored. This in turn has created a foundation upon which other narratives could be (and have been) constructed. Dr Stone noted that the movement of Bristol’s docks from the centre of the city to Avonmouth removed what would have arguably been the most striking reminder of Bristol’s links to the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved persons.

 One of the key conclusions from Dr Stone’s discussion was the fact that the legacies of enslavement in Bristol are in fact everywhere, but a lack of acknowledgement of their histories mean they are ‘invisible’. Both Clifton Village and Queen’s Square are good examples of this. The construction of these major areas of modern Bristol’s landscape were reliant upon financial investment from those very closely linked, directly and indirectly, to slavery.

In fact, many of those who profited from enslavement have record of residence in these areas. UCL’s investigation into the British residences of those with significant connections to slavery show records of seven that took up residence in Queen’s Square, and thirty-three that lived, at various times, in Clifton Village.

It is perhaps indicative of Dr Stone’s point that in both areas of Bristol, the only real acknowledgement of slavery comes from the Queen’s Square plaque to a Woodes Rogers, labelling him a “great seaman” and circumnavigator. It makes no reference to his deep involvement in the trading of the enslaved.

 Bringing everything somewhat closer to home, Dr Stone used the University of Bristol’s logo as a means by which to highlight the legacies of enslavement in Bristol, that are often “hidden in plain sight”.

University of Bristol Logo, last updated in 2004

Upon the logo, the Sun represents the Wills Family, who were tobacconists that shipped and sold tobacco from the New World, which was often grown through enslaved labour. Their links to slavery, if somewhat indirect in nature, certainly exist. Due to this murky past, debate around the renaming of the Wills Memorial Building in Bristol remains significant in the discourse of decolonisation.

Similarly, the Horse represents the Fry Family, Bristol chocolatiers linked to the growth and cultivation of cocoa by enslaved persons in the Caribbean. On the left, there is the Dolphin of the Colston Family, of which Edward Colston was the most prominent merchant, and arguably the most well-known slave-trading figure from Bristol. The University of Bristol promised a review into the logo in 2020. As of the date of the publication of this article, the logo remains unchanged.

 This is not to neglect the fact that there are some sites that memorialse or tell the stories of Bristol’s involvement in the trade in enslaved persons. Examples of these sites increased after the International Festival of the Sea, first held in Bristol in 1996, which brought greater public scrutiny to Bristol’s maritime past. Dr Stone highlighted the 1997 Plaque that is located on the walls of M-Shed as one example, Pero’s Bridge as another, the Bristol Slave Trade Trail as a third, and Scipio Africanus’ grave as a fourth example. But even these are relatively obscure.

The 1997 plaque lies on the brick wall of a warehouse, and space on the plaque is mostly taken up by a commemoration of the unveiling rather than the memory of slavery. The memorial at Pero’s Bridge is hardly noticeable to passers-by, and the bridge is now also renowned for the ‘love locks’ that adorn it. Scipio Africanus’ grave lies almost five miles away from the centre of Bristol, and the Bristol Slave Trade Trail remains relatively unknown and must be actively sought out.

The ‘lovelocks’ of Pero Bridge

Of course, these are just a few of the more significant examples of memorialising slavery, and there are many ongoing processes in Bristol, such as at the Bristol Cathedral, that are aiming to find the right approach to remembering the history of the enslaved in the city. But for now, these still remain fairly out of sight.

However, Dr Stone acknowledges that recent scholarship and public initiatives are shedding light on the issue of the legacies of slavery in Bristol in many effective ways, and that the way forward is clear. The priorities should be making slavery visible by emphasising the individual and collective truths of the enslaved, not the enslavers. Through such work, the true history of Bristol’s links to transatlantic slavery can be remembered to the full extent it deserves.