News Feed - Bristol Radical History Group

Smugglers 2: The West Country

Smugglers: Radicals Or Romantic - Kevin Davis Easton Cowboy and refugee from Dorset, Kevin claims to have left his life of wrecking and smuggling behind in his hometown of Poole. But who knows? 'Official' history tells us that the smugglers of the 18th and 19th century were shadowy, brutal thugs, a threat to the economy, law and order and moral fabric of a whole nation. Yet popular culture then as now celebrates these same figures as brave, cunning and noble folk heroes. Using the case study of […]

Smugglers 1: Custom Becomes Crime

Custom Becomes Crime, Crime Becomes Culture: The Sea Related Informal Economies From Feudalism To Capitalism - Trevor Bark Troublemaker and academic from the North East, Trevor is on the editorial board of Capital and Class. He is an expert on the social history of crime and author of papers such as 'Crime becomes Custom, Custom becomes Crime'. This talk describes the inter-related nature of the sea based informal economies through time, and in the process drawing out important characteristics. […]

Merry Hell

A singular conflagration of live music and moving pictures to launch Bristol Radical History Week into fair winds. The Cube Orchestra will accompany exceptional films with improvised scores. Pirates created an upside down world of anarchist organisation and festival, with violence and death ever present. Through the satanic imagery of their flags, skulls, skeletons, grim reapers and hourglasses, they expressed their defiance of death itself. Pirates shunned Christian myths of paradise and […]

Black Radical Abolitionists

March 2007 marked the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. One of the turning points in the campaign to abolish the slave trade was the 1789 publication of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Among the many abolitionist tracts, this indictment of slavery, written by a former slave, had arguably the biggest impact on the British public. Similarly, the actions of former slaves energized radical movements […]

Caribbean Struggles After Slavery

Richard Hart: Key figure in the politics of the Caribbean of the 20th century. Trade Union and political activist in Jamaica, Guyana and Attorney General of Grenada; a post he held until the American invasion in 1983. As an academic, Richard Hart taught at Northwestern University, USA, and has also been a visiting lecturer at a number of Canadian and American universities, the University of Guyana, University of Havana, University of the West Indies in Jamaica and Trinidad and the University of […]

Bristol Abolition Pub Night

At the end of the 18th century, slave ship sailors and abolitionists met in the Seven Stars pub to plot the end of the slave trade. Join us at this historic Bristol landmark for a night of plotting, moshing and moonstomping. Compere Mark Steeds will introduce us to the history of the Seven Stars before handing over to Bridgewater DJ Dave Chapple who will lead us towards ska enlightenment. DJ Chapple's lecture will be a musical odyssey from the end of slavery in Jamaica to independence; or as he […]

The Invisible Abolitionists And The Slaves Who Abolished Slavery

Adam Hochschild: A multi-award winning author, his first book Half the Way Home: a Memoir of Father and Son, was published in 1986. It was followed by The Mirror at Midnight: a South African Journey, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin, Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels, King Leopold's Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa and Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves. His widely read books have won numerous […]

Scandal! The Slave Profiteers

Jim McNeill's contribution concentrated on how the Emancipation Act of 1833 awarded Bristol-based slave owners compensation of over £500,000 for the 'loss' of their slaves. Jim looked at how this money was invested to stimulate the establishment and growth of industrial development, including Gas, Cotton and Railways in the city. Listen to this talk: Part 1 Part 2 Download Part 1 (10 Mb mp3 file) Download Part 2 (7.3 Mb mp3 file) See a pdf file containing the power point slides for this lecture

La Ultima Cena

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 […]

Opening The Archives: The Abolitionist Movement In Bristol

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.