Slavery, Abolition and Steam Packet Ships

The forced movement of enslaved people from Africa across the Atlantic was abolished in the British Empire in 1807. However, people already enslaved would not be free until the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 and the end of the Apprentice System in 1838.

Even after this, there were attempts by those in power to control newly freed people. This included when they could work and how they could live. 

Research demonstrates that the majority of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company’s founding board members made significant sums of money from the forced labour of enslaved Africans; that at least two members took part in prominent pro-slavery campaigns; and that the company profited from the exploitation of enslaved people after emancipation in the British Empire.

Transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans

Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, African people were forcibly taken from their homes. Families were separated and transported across the Atlantic Ocean.

At the height of the period, this forced movement occurred on big ships packed full of kidnapped people. The journey took weeks and often proved fatal. Millions of people died. Those who survived faced a harsh life. They were forced to work long hours for no money, in unfamiliar places and brutal conditions. By enslaving these people, Britain built its wealth and power, becoming the largest empire in the world.

Children and adults were controlled by the constant threat of violence and death. Despite this, people bravely found ways to keep their cultures alive and to develop new cultural practices. New communities formed, supporting each other to survive and resist. Legacies of their resistance are celebrated today.

How was transatlantic slavery abolished?

Ending transatlantic slavery took years of protest and resistance. Across empires there were daily and daring acts of resistance. On plantations there were uprisings where enslaved people fought for their freedom.

In Britain, free Black people and White supporters led campaigns to raise awareness of the horrors of slavery. These efforts, combined with decreasing profits, fear of rebellion and moral outrage compelled change. In 1807, Britain passed a law banning the forced movement of enslaved people from Africa across the Atlantic.

Slavery remained legal in other parts of the Americas, and Britain continued to profit from the commodities produced. In 1833, Britain passed a new law: the Slavery Abolition Act. This did not mean enslaved people were free. They continued to be trapped in similar or worse conditions and forced to work. The ‘Apprenticeship System’, as it was known, lasted until 1838.

Compensation

People made enormous amounts of money from enslaving African people and their descendants. They did not want to lose this if slavery ended.

In 1837, the British Parliament decided that enslavers should be given money in exchange for freeing the people they held captive. Together, these men and women were given £20 million, worth billions today, for giving up ‘their property’. The wording of the law treated enslaved women, men and children not as people but ‘things’, like the buildings and animals owned by enslavers. The government did not have the money to pay all of the compensation straight away, so they had to borrow.

It took until 2015 for this debt to be paid off. No money was given to the people who had been enslaved. The legacy of this injustice is still felt today and many people are campaigning for governments to make up for this unfair treatment.

Who was Mary Prince and how was she slandered by James MacQueen?

One of the many enslavers who received compensation from the government was James MacQueen. He wrote and published A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam at the same time as debates were taking place about the future of slavery, compensation, and the impending end of the apprenticeship period. MacQueen’s proposal led to the development of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.

Pro-slavery campaigners often fought against abolition by trying to discredit people who spoke out about their experiences of slavery, including Mary Prince.

Mary  Prince was the first Black woman to publish an autobiography in Britain about her experiences of being enslaved. In 1828, Prince travelled to Britain with her enslaver, Adams Wood. After arriving in Britain, she eventually left Wood and sought refuge at a Moravian Church in London. Wood refused to allow Mary to purchase her freedom or to permit another person to take over as her enslaver. This left Mary unable to return to her husband, family or friends in Antigua, where she would once again be enslaved and controlled by Adams Wood.

Prince told her life story to abolitionist Susanna Strickland, who wrote it down. Her account was edited by another prominent abolitionist, Thomas Pringle, and published in 1831.

The book received both praise and criticism, as it revealed the brutal realities of slavery, including the harrowing story of her separation from her mother, and the beatings and abuse she received at the hands of her enslaver.

Mary  Prince and her work were very important in changing wider public opinion about slavery. She wrote that she was ’often much vexed, and I feel great sorrow when I hear some people in this country say, that the slaves do not need better usage, and do not want to be free.’

Recently, historians have questioned how much of Mary’s story was changed or left out of the book by its editors. Susanna Strickland left out parts of Mary’s story that didn’t fit with the abolitionist cause, for example acknowledgment of her relationship with a man. However, many historians argue that the spirit of Mary’s story can authentically be found within the published account.  

James MacQueen, the founder of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and vocal pro-slavery advocate, publicly slandered  Prince’s account and questioned its accuracy. In Blackwood’s Magazine, MacQueen wrote that the abolitionist movement had created a ‘pretended history’ and used Mary Prince as a ‘despicable tool… for the purpose of destroying the character of two respectable individuals… Mr and Mrs Wood of Antigua.’

Little is known about Mary Prince’s later life, but she is recognised today for her role in changing public attitudes to slavery and her work remains in print today. Her life is commemorated by a plaque on at the University of London’s Senate House.

Andrew Colvile and Robert Wedderburn

Another vocal advocate for maintaining slavery was Andrew Colvile, who, like James MacQueen, would go on to become a founding Royal Mail Steam Packet Company board member.

Following the abolition of slavery, Colvile developed indentured labour schemes, where people from India were taken to work in parts of the British Empire, including the Caribbean. Individuals signed contracts, agreeing to work for set periods of time, although many could not read and so may not have known what they were agreeing to. The conditions were often terrible and many people were kidnapped and forced to work against their will.

In May 1838, Colvile was part of a group that transported 78 men, two women, and two children – an eight year old girl and a four year old girl – from India to his Bellevue plantation in British Guiana. Within a year, 12 of the men had died. One of the children died after being raped.

Andrew Colvile also opposed abolitionists in Britain, one of whom was his own half-brother, Robert Wedderburn. Wedderburn and Colvile shared a father but had different mothers. Their father, James Wedderburn-Colvile, was a wealthy enslaver who owned plantations in Jamaica. Robert’s mother, Rosanna, was enslaved by his father in Jamaica at the time of his conception.

Robert Wedderburn was a radical who believed that the freedom of enslaved people in the Caribbean was linked to the liberation of English working people. His views were more radical than most other abolitionists. He published The Horrors of Slavery in 1824. It is a pro-abolition memoir which documents the abuses his mother and grandmother experienced while on plantations in Jamaica, often at the hands of his father. The book also encouraged people to join the abolitionist movement. Robert Wedderburn wrote that:

‘I never saw my dear father but once in the island of Jamaica, when I went with my grandmother to know if he meant to do anything for me, his son. Giving her some abusive language, my grandmother called him a mean Scotch rascal, thus to desert his own flesh and blood.’

 

Andrew Colvile attacked his half-brother Robert Wedderburn in the press and tried to discredit his claims about their shared family.

Although they shared a father, Robert and Andrew had very different lives. Andrew benefitted from the family money. Robert was publicly rejected by his father’s family and was poor for much of his life. Their life experiences were different because Robert was the child of an enslaved woman and was racialised as Black. Andrew was able to claim the privileges and freedoms of whiteness that society had constructed.

Commemorating legacies though portraiture

Robert Wedderburn’s legacy is celebrated by artist Grace Lee, a multidisciplinary artist and DJ of Jamaican and Scottish heritage. Lee describes her work as ‘honouring and highlighting marginalised figures and narratives hidden from the mainstream, paying homage to the full range of our collective cultural heritage.’

The portrait was commissioned by Museum of Colour, whose Founder and Director Samenua Sesher OBE explains that portraiture is so important because:

Every day our society finds both obvious and subtle ways to tell us who it values and who it doesn’t. A portrait conveys value, it provides visibility, importance and the potential for immortality. It was always my first choice for celebrating the creative contributions of people of colour to a British society that still struggles to value us and questions the legitimacy of our existence as citizens and our Britishness.

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Sharing Mary Prince and Robert Wedderburn’s stories in Voices of Resistance enables us to centre the experiences of African Caribbean people and amplify voices traditionally silenced and under-represented in museum collections.

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Sources

Robert Wedderburn, The Horrors of Slavery

Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince

Blackwood’s Magazine, volume 30, July – December 1831