Long time links of Belfast with the so-called "Western values".

["D OC" <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Belfast, Business and the Slave Trade.

Roddy Hegarty.

Two recent publications beautifully illustrate the dichotomy that often
emerges from our reading of general and local histories. `Seldom, if ever,
has "the national" histoician made even a passing reference to the fact that
the industrial success of Belfast was based upon anything other than the
presence and the enterpreneurship of its largely Presbyterian merchant
class. Occasionally, the closer relationship with the "workshop of the
 world" following the Act of Union has also featured as reason for the town'
s relative industrial prowess and prosperity.

Notwithstanding the major contribution of both of the above factors there
remains the question of how this growth and development were financed.
Belfast was, after all, in the XVIII century, far removed from the centers
of the capital, themselves only emerging into the industrial age. Most
industrial activity was still extremely labour intensive and the mass
markets of the imperial age were still a century from realization.

Belfast, however, was awash with confident, radical and above all wealthy
merchant as has been displayed by any number of publications relating to the
politics of 1790s and to the United Irishmen in particular. Hand in hand
with this radicalism, we have been told, ran a spirit of philanthropy which
seemed to pervade each and every facet of life in the town. These were the
champions of Liberte, Fraternite and Egalite. Was this actually the case or
has our view of these XVIII century radicals been coloured by our need to
see them as the heroes of that other slogan of their times which sought to
unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter?

The role of the linen industry in creating a factory based industrial
economy in Belfast is well documented but this giant of the industrial city
was spawned by the town's earlier relationship with the cotton. The raw
material for linen was largely provided by farms across the northern
counties of Ireland. Cotton on the other hand was the product of more
tropical climes.

The colonization of the eastern territories of North America, contemporary
to the Plantation in Ulster, had allowed a number things to occur not least
of which was the development of trading links between Ulster and the New
World. This relationship was solidified as thousands of Scots settlers in
Ulster left to take advantage of the new opportunities opening up across the
Atlantic in the early 1700's. A substantial number of these were to help
from the backbone of economic and political life in the colonies and in the
United States after independence.

  An earlier and just as important migration westwards, this time to the
Caribbean, had witnessed the establishment of tobacco and later sugar
production there. The markets for these products were of course in Europe.
Inevitably, because of its position on the western extremity of Europe,
Ireland played a crucial role in servicing and supplying these enterprises.
Chief amongst the ports involved in this trade were Cork, Limerick and
Galway but Belfast too was to become indispensable in their maintenance.

Both the Caribbean and American systems shared common means of production,
the mass employment of indentured servants and more particularly the
exploitation of slave labour. Many of the enlightened radicals of Belfast's
merchant community owed their position in life and in the town of Belfast to
the fact that they directly or indirectly profited from the trade in slaves
from America or from the product of their labours.

Belfast as a port supplied provisions not just for trading ships to the
colonies but in time provided a large percentage of the food stuffs required
to keep this system afloat. With the expansion of the sugar industry in the
Caribbean little or no land was given over to the cultivation of other
crops. The burgeoning slave population therefore became virtually dependent
upon imported food as significant proportion of which was supplied by
Belfast merchants. Local industrialists too were to benefit from this trade
with linen and shoemaking taking full advantage.

Salted herring was exported from Belfast as was cheap linen cloth for the
clothing the slaves of the West Indian plantations. The late XVIII century
also saw a huge expansion of shoemaking in Belfast where a broader fitting
shoe more suited to the African rather that European foot was produced. The
period between 1783 and 1791 witnessed a 40% increase in this industry
alone.

Rodgers has noted the positive reception accorded to Olodah Equiano in 1791
as he toured the country to promote his book and the cause of abolition. The
welcome in Belfast was even more note worthy where he appears to have struck
a cord with many of the local radicals who drew parallels between his work
against slavery and the campaign for Catholic emancipation. Not all of the
local worthies shared the opinions of Samuel Neilson and William Drennan
however.

Waddell Cunningham, founding president of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce
and first president of the Harbour Board, was possibly the most successful
local businessman of the age. Having emigrated to New York in the mid 1700s
he quickly established himself as one of the main players in the trading of
West Indian commodities. Not only did he deal in the produce of slave labour
but he was intimately involved in the trading of slaves within the islands
of the Caribbean. Following the 7 Years War he acquired a plantation of his
own in Dominica which he renamed Belfast. Throughout his period of
habitation in America Cunningham maintained and developed his business
contacts with his base in Ireland and return to expand his trading empire
locally in 1765.

As with many of his contemporaries Cunningham became involved in the
political as well as commercial life of the expanding town rising to command
the Belfast Volunteers. His interest in politics continued into 1790s and
although a reformer he remained wedded to his roots opposing both the
abolition of slavery and Catholic emancipation. He even attempted to
establish a slave trading company in the town but was lambasted for doing so
by a number of his peers amongst them Thomas McCabe the self-styled "Irish
slave".

Cunningham's business interests were much broader than the Trans-Atlantic
trade to which he owned much of his wealth and influence. He developed
business links with Russia, Jordan, Sweden, Holland and France as well. He
was also involved in the insurance industry and established a bank. His and
other's role in developing the conditions within Belfast that were to enable
the town to blossom into one of the most productive industrial cities of the
XIX century are unquestionable. Yet there would appear to be a substantial
body of evidence to suggest that the town's eventual industrial take off was
facilitated by the revenue generate in slave colonies of the West Indies and
colonial America.

Cunningham and other merchants like Valentine Jones traded with the colonies
bringing back sugar, rum, tobacco, and other exotic wares for resale in
Europe. There seems to have been, at the best. A degree of ambivalence
amongst this class of trader as to the morality of such enterprises. Such
exploitation of one's fellow man would not have carried the burden of moral
guilt that may attach to the same trade today but they can scarcely have
been unaware of the efforts of those around them to confine such abuses to
history.

Half a century later when another Black anti-slavery campaigner arrived in
Belfast those early visions of the town as a haven of liberalism and harmony
were again to be called into question. Frederick Douglas saw in Daniel
O'Connell a role model for his own crusade and was impressed by The
Liberator's unwavering opposition to slavery. He sought in a lecture in
Belfast to highlight the hypocrisy of the local Christian churches who, in
an effort to evangelize the growing urban populations at home, readily
accepted money from slave owners in the southern states of America. Douglas
echoed the calls of the Belfast Anti-Slavery Committee to the Rev. Thomas
Chalmers then head of the Free Church of Scotland to "send back the money".
The response was for members of Chalmer's church to parade in Belfast
carrying placards which read "Send Back the Nigger".

In spite of the fact that most histories of the city tend to neglect this
aspect of life down through the years it would nevertheless be foolish to
pretend that Belfast or Ulster in general were in some way isolated from the
worst excesses of European history. As Rolston and Shannon adequately
demonstrate, many had served with Britain's armed forces overseas whilst
others held influential position in the civil service of several European
countries. One only has to look at some of the public architecture which
adorns Belfast to appreciate how intimately local industrialists and
merchants were involved with the exploitation and traffic in human lives
upon which empires were built.

These 2 publications have begun to unravel some of that story and to provide
us with a fuller picture of life here at the beginning of the industrial
age. Belfast may not have been to the fore in the employment of slavery or
indeed in the process of denuding Africa, Asia and South America of their
natural and mineral wealth. However, publications such as these are a
reminder that history, general or local, throws up villains as well as
heroes virtually every time we engage with the past.

Encounters: How racism came to Ireland, Bill Rolston & Michael Shannon,
Beyond The Pale Publications, "002, £6.99, 108 pp. ISBN 1-900960-15-X

Equiano and Anti-Slavery in XVIII Century Belfast, Nini Rodgers, Belfast
Society, 2000, £5.00, 27 pp, ISBN 0-9539604-0-4


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