Legacies of Slavery - Inverclyde's Slave Trade Connections

Legacies of slavery inverclyde’s slave trade connections

The Legacies of Slavery project was developed and managed by Inverclyde Community Development Trust with the support of National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Published by Magic Torch Comics CIC / Inverclyde Community Development Trust September 2023.

The publication is not for sale or resale and is exclusively for free distribution. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except for the purposes of review.

This comic is a blend of conversations, questions and documentary information compiled from various sources and individuals. It includes direct quotes from a number of documents, including Inverclyde Council’s Historical Links to Slavery Report – which is available to read and download online. Thank you to Inverclyde Council for their support of the project.

Script written and compiled by Paul Bristow (Magic Torch Comics) and Jideofor (J.I.M.) Muotune (#theafrowegian.org).

Special thanks to the young people of Proud2Care and the staff and volunteers of The Watt Institution for their input and involvement in the script.

Artwork

‘Greenock Streets’ by Zu Dominiak

‘Atlantic Slave Trade’ by Mhairi M Robertson

‘Questions Are Good’ by Hesitant Doodle

‘Frederick Douglass’ by Norrie Millar

‘Slave Trade Connections’ by Julie Campbell

‘Compensation Cartoon’ by Tony Pickering

‘James Watt’ by Kai J Cockburn

‘Abolition/Plantation’ by Julie Campbell

‘Legacy’ by Hesitant Doodle

Cover design by Megan McGurk runriot.co

Cover images:

James Watt and the Steam Engine: the Dawn of the Nineteenth Century, (1855), by James Eckford Lauder (b. 1811). Photo credit: National Galleries of Scotland, licensed under CC BY-NC.

Greenock and its environs, by Andrew Macfarlane, fl. 1837-1850. Date of publication: 1842. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland, licensed under CC-BY 4.0 (NLS)

Lithograph: Greenock, by Allan & Ferguson, Glasgow, c. 1840-49. Science Museum Group. Lithograph: Greenock. Science Museum Group Collection Online, licensed under CC0 1.0 Public Domain.

Frederick Douglass Portrait by Matthew B. Brady, 1880. Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005. The Met Collection API, licensed under CC0 1.0 Public Domain

Project managed by Niall Ptolomey. Thanks to Ilona Richards, Saskia McCracken, Karen Lodge and Ross Ahlfeld at Inverclyde Community Development Trust and all partners on the project steering group.

Time moves on. New facts emerge. And so how we choose to tell and share the stories of Inverclyde’s past has to change as well. This graphic novel is a creative response to a report submitted to Inverclyde Council on Inverclyde’s historical connections to slavery and the ways in which these connections can be recognised today. It also serves as a resource to support the learning, teaching and celebration of the history of black people in Inverclyde. We should be minded that this history is the history of all people of Inverclyde, not just the black ones.

We should also note that although Transatlantic or ‘chattel’ slavery has been abolished, modern day slavery remains very much in place today. Men, women and children are still being taken from their countries and communities to be used as a low cost resource to create wealth for others.

We need to be brave and bold in confronting this difficult topic, keeping in mind that enslaved black people in Scotland did not have the agency to share their stories. Enslaved Africans were beaten, branded and abused without recourse to the law. This is why, whilst engaging primary sources, it is important that this graphic novel is also informed by a ‘black’ gaze on the report’s findings.

Inverclyde’s connections to slavery and the wider colonial Empire came through trade and investment. This had a significant impact on Greenock and the development of its sugar refineries producing an eightfold increase in its population during the 18th Century.

Many who benefited from slavery sought to keep their interests out of public view, but the evidence is all around us. Why, we might ask, is there a Jamaica Street in Greenock? As we move towards the next phase of examining this painful chapter we must embrace the opportunity to support, celebrate and invest in the black communities of Inverclyde.

August 2023

Jideofor (J.I.M.) Muotune

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”

Frederick Douglass

Sketchbook

On the following pages you can see original script and sketchwork from the Legacies of Slavery project.

PAGE EIGHT

Panel 1

Two young people entering Watt Institution

CAPTION

It should make us seek out more information…

Panel 2

Young people sit at table looking at books and maps

CAPTION

Other connections…

CAPTION

The people and places behind those street names.

Panel 3

Picture of Frederick Douglass in a book

CAPTION

And the many people who spoke out about the horror of the trade.

Panel 4

Newspaper clipping announcing Douglass visit to West Blackhall Street church

Panel 5

Two young people now outside the church today (same building, now a carpet showroom…)

CAPTION

This, is one of the places in Greenock, where abolitionist Frederick Douglass came to speak…

PAGE ELEVEN

Panel 1

Church where Douglass spoke circa 1850

CAPTION

Douglass spoke in Greenock on three occasions. Twice in 1846 and once in 1860.

CAPTION

He spoke for the ending of enslavement and targeted those individuals and organisations who either profited from it or helped it continue.

Panel 2

DOUGLASS addresses the congregation, some of whom look unimpressed.

CAPTION

In his speeches he challenged the Free Church of Scotland's role in supporting those who were enslaved. Sometimes this was met with hissing from audiences.

CAPTION

However when challenged, no one in those audiences would speak against him for the Free Church.

Panel 3

DOUGLASS as presidential adviser to ABE LINCOLN

CAPTION

Frederick Douglass spent his life fighting for justice and equal rights for both black people and women. He became a prominent political figure and a Presidential Advisor.

Panel 4

Older DOUGLASS addresses us directly.

DOUGLASS

I could but congratulate myself that, born as I was a slave marked for a life under the lash in the cornfield, that I was abroad and free and privileged to see these distant lands so full of historical interest and which those of the most highly favoured by fortune are permitted to visit.

Panel 1

View of James Watt’s birthplace (various images available all present a similar view)

CAPTION

James Watt - one of the inventors of the steam engine, was born and raised in Greenock.

Panel 2

A slave auction / scramble

CAPTION

His family were heavily involved in transatlantic commerce, including, sometimes trading enslaved men, women and children.

Panel 3

James Watt senior, busy at a bureau stacked with documents and papers

CAPTION

His father, James Watt Senior, was a transatlantic merchant in Greenock.

CAPTION

He traded in sugar and tobacco through representatives known as ‘super cargos’ based in North America and the Caribbean.

Panel 4

Over John’s shoulder as he writes in an order book at his desk

CAPTION

The Inventor’s brother, John aka 'Jockey’, also worked in their father's businesses.

ORDER BOOK TEXT

Rum, molasses, salt, negroes.

CAPTION

He had a much more substantial involvement in slave trading.

Splash page – Greenock as busy trading port

CAPTION

Greenock was Glasgow’s West India merchants’ preferred port for trading with the Caribbean right into the 19th Century.

CAPTION

It’s not clear how much James Watt Senior’s money affected James Watt The Inventor’s career and therefore how much of it can be attributed to the direct and indirect profits of slavery.

CAPTION

But we should also be minded that trafficking in enslaved Africans will only have been a small part of the ‘family’ businesses.

PAGE EIGHTEEN

Three vertical panels

Panel 1

James Watt stands at the docks, at the bottom of a gangplank, documents in hand.

CAPTION

James Watt The Inventor did profit directly from the commerce surrounding the West India trades in Great Britain in several ways.

CAPTION

By acting as an agent for his father.

Panel 2

View of Delftfield Pottery

CAPTION

By being a major shareholder in Delftfield Pottery - a Scottish firm shipping pottery from the Clyde to Caribbean islands like Antigua, Trinidad, Jamaica and Grenada with large contingents of resident Scottish planters in the early nineteenth century.

Panel 3

Enslaved people standing by the Boulton-Watt steam engine, ready to operate.

Further comic reading

Below are a selection of comics and graphic novels which also explore the slave trade and Black history.

Aye, It Wis Aabody

Paul Bristow, Mhairi M Robertson

Magic Torch Comics

Freedom Bound – Escaping Slavery in Scotland

Warren Pleece, Shazleen Khan, Robin Jones

Black Hearted Press

Wake – The Hidden History of Women Led Slave Revolts

Rebecca Hall, Hugo Martinez

Simon & Schuster

Nat Turner

Kyle Baker

Abrams

Angola Janga – Kingdom of the Runaway Slaves

Marcelo D’Salete

Fantagraphics

Still I Rise : A Graphic History of African Americans

Roland Laird, Taneshia Nash Laird, Elihu ‘Adofo’ Bey

WW Norton & Co

The March Trilogy

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell

Top Shelf Productions

The Harlem Hellfighters

Max Brooks

Broadway Books

Incognegro – A Graphic Mystery

Warren Pleece, Mat Johnson

Berger Books

The Silence of Our Friends

Mark Long, Jim Demonakos

First Second