Directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1976, 120 minutes, Colour. (Spanish with English subtitles) Attempting to fulfil a religious obligation, the Count of a sugar mill in Cuba at the end of the eighteenth century decides to recreate the Last Supper, playing Jesus Christ himself and randomly selecting twelve slaves as his disciples. Tensions break out between Don Manuel, a cruel, hardened overseer who believes that slaves have nothing to do with God and that letting slaves eat at the master's table […]
Jane Bradley and Dawn Dyer kindly complied a selection of books, posters and newspapers from the Reference Library's collection charting both the slave trade and its abolition. These included an early edition of Equiano's An Interesting Narrative, election posters from 1832 (for and against the continuation of slavery) and adverts in newspapers offering rewards for runaway slaves.
Jim McNeill, local historian, storyteller and member of Living Easton will lead us on a walk that explores the history of Bristol Blue glass and reveals its links to slave money. From Ye Shakespeare Public House, (Victoria St) to The Ostrich Public House. A walk along the River Avon, through the districts of Redcliffe and Temple, Bristol, to explore the sites of the city's glasshouses and how they were sustained by colonial expansion and Bristol's involvement in the slave trade. Read an […]
Pontecorvo's memorable sequel to Battle of Algiers sees Brando in finely ambiguous form as the drunken, cynical Sir William Walker, a British agent sent to the Caribbean island of Queimada in the mid-1800s to stir up a native rebellion against the Portuguese sugar monopoly; ten years later, he is forced to return there to destroy the leader he himself created, in order to open up trade with Britain. Falling between epic adventure and political allegory, the film is occasionally clumsily […]
Sugar and Tobacco: Drugs of Capitalism - Dave Cullum This lecture studies the impact of Bristol's international trade on the developing industrial economy of England in the 18th and 19th centuries, with a focus on diet, nutrition and addiction amongst the new urban proletariat…. Listen to this talk: Download this lecture The Anti-slavery Movements in Bristol - Madge Dresser There were three anti-slavery campaigns in Bristol between the late eighteenth and the early twentieth centuries: the […]
Clarkson This film tells the story of an unsung hero in the fight to abolish slave trading and is set in Bristol in 1787. Although Wilberforce has won public acclaim for finally outlawing the trade, it was Thomas Clarkson who provided him with much of the data that he used to back up the cause. The film is one of contrast: between the pious young divinity student, straight out of University, and the bawdy taverns and rough slave port where he conducted his fact-finding. Clarkson 'grows up' as […]
West Country Slavery (700-1150) - Chris Brian Slavery in England is little known about, neither is the fact that in medieval times the West Country had a very high proportion of it's population enslaved. The talk highlights West Country slavery, including the early establishment of Bristol as a slave trading post. It also explores who was likely to become a slave in medieval England, and asks what were the conditions like for these slaves, compared to other slave cultures. Slave Revolts - Edson […]
This book was published in 1992 and won the Booker Prize. It is about greed, raw capitalism and the relentless pursuit of profit, the sacred hunger, "which justifies everything and sanctifies all purposes" in the triangular slave trade. The story revolves around a conflict between Thurso, the captain of a slave ship and Paris the ship’s doctor. Life aboard the slave ship is contrasted with the life of the wealthy owners back in Liverpool. The nature and mechanics of the barbaric treatment of […]
This classic text is the most comprehensive and extensively researched history of black people in Britain. The sections on the black radicals of the 18th and 19th century are a must as is Fryer's demolition of British establishment attempts to rewrite themselves as the moral and legal vanguard in the abolition of slavery. Fryer's social history not only enlightens us about individual black political figures in this process but also covers such disparate groups as boxers, musicians and soldiers […]
Brilliant work charting the misunderstood and misrepresented history of the Atlantic proletariat during the rise of mercantile capitalism. Breaks out of the limits of the nation state set by previous social history and examines the struggles of slaves, sailors and commoners across the Atlantic from the old world to the new. (BRHG)
