Cranfield Becher's 270 year old slave trade log book

A 270 year old log book that belonged to Bristol slave trader,  Cranfield Becher was acquired from his family last year at London’s Bloomsbury Auctions by Bristol Record Office for £7 000.

Cranfield’s father John Becher together with his other sons Michael, George and Edward, ran a slave trade business. They had a number of galleys that were used in the triangular trade, including Jason, Southwell, Peniel, Excellence and Anson among others. The family owned a plantation in Kingston Jamaica, where Cranfield’s brother Edward lived with his wife Hannah.

John Becher who ran a company called Ducommen, Becher & Co, owned property in Orchard Street, Queen Square. Likewise, a row of terraced houses were built for John Becher and his associate Henry Combe in Prince Street also in Bristol, in 1726. One of these still exists to this day as the Shakespeare Tavern. In addition, John Becher had an extensive property portfolio in Ireland which he inherited from his father.

According to Allie Dillon senior archivist at Bristol Record Office “There is no doubting the historical significance of this book and its legacy. It records what was once considered a legitimate, commercial business- with an eye for the huge potential end profit. It is important that this book is part of our archive and that it is available for people to study. The book is in a fragile condition but we have already digitised its contents so that it can be read by visitors to the Record Office.

“Thanks to generous support from the Friends of Bristol Museums Galleries & Archives and the Victoria & Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund we have been able to return this unique book to its city of origin and for the first time we can make it available for research.”

The book that is now on display in Bristol provides detailed insights into a transatlantic journey by the ‘Jason Gally’ slave vessel between 1743 and 1746. In the book are chilling handwritten instructions to the ship’s commander John Bartlett on buying slaves in Angola for sale in the Americas.

   

There is also information relating to other associates and businessmen with a vested interest in the Jason’s slave trading ventures.  

Dr Madge Dresser, Associate Professor in History at the Regional History Centre describes the Cranfield Becher records as providing a glimpse into eighteenth century transatlantic slave trading  operations; the existing White ideology of the time, and the pattern of labour market activity during this period.

As an illustration, the book identifies the group of men responsible for overseeing Bristol’s slave trade. Bristol merchants played a prominent role in the supply of enslaved Africans to the sugar plantations in St Kitts and Barbados as well as the tobacco plantations in Virginia.

Bristol’s dominance in the 17^th and 18^th centuries was made possible by establishing good business relationships in specific regions of West Africa such as Angola. For instance merchants formed strong links, based on secured bonds of trust with local trader dynasties that spawned generations.

They were also able to leverage business expertise and make effective use of local resources. Of particular interest is the fact that merchants who invested in the transatlantic slave trade were backed by Bristol’s Members of Parliament (MP’s) for many years.These MP’s were influential in delaying the move to abolish slavery in the House of Commons.by speaking favourably of the trade.   

Dr Dresser adds that the book  “details, for example, the transactions between Bristol merchants and their Carolina agents who speak of ‘Negroes’ as trading commodities from whom a good price must be obtained in precisely the same tone as they discuss the rice and deerskins they also trafficked.”

With regards to gender conformity and job structure the Professor states "A list of ship’s provisioners unexpectedly reveals that women were among the smiths and gunsmiths who supplied goods and services for the voyage to Angola, which among other things suggests that gender divisions in work were not always as rigidly observed as  sometimes thought."

The legacy of the slave trade is evident in the various buildings and institutions in Bristol that were born out of the wealth generated from the trade in slaves and products based on slave labour.  In this regard, Councillor Simon Cook, Bristol’s assistant mayor aptly sums up the relevance of Cranfield Becher’s 270 year old log book as “a deeply moving account of a particular time in Bristol’s history.

“Trading in human life to make money in any era makes for chilling reading and it is through access to these original sources that we are better able to comprehend the city’s past.”

Uncovering A Dark Secret in Dutch History

The exhibition “The Dark Chapter “kicked off on June 27^th 2013 at the National Maritime Museum (Het Scheepvaartmuseum) in Amsterdam and will be on view until August 31st 2014.  The museum announced on Monday, Feb 3, 2014 that the display has attracted over 100 000 visitors. This exhibit is worthy of note for being the subject of one of the greatest yet least known shipping tragedies in Dutch history.

In the Netherlands slavery was brought to an end on 1 July 1863 and last year various events were held across the country to mark the 150^th anniversary of Dutch abolition. For most of the 17^th and 19^th centuries the Dutch played an active role in the transatlantic slave trade. The Dutch West India Company (WIC) was established as a monopoly over the African slave trade to the Americas and the Caribbean. It is estimated that about half a million slaves were transported from the West Coast of Africa by the WIC.  

The slaves worked on plantations growing sugar and coffee for example, and these products were shipped back to Amsterdam to be refined in factories. Income from the goods produced from the trade in slaves and the fruits of their labour were the driving force behind the Netherland’s golden age- a period of economic prosperity and the best living standards in Europe....

Chained and bound, nearly 700 men, women and children stripped not only of their clothing but their personal dignity, were fastened in a coffle and pushed through the Elmina Castle’s ‘ door of no return.’ There, docked at the harbor was the Leusden, waiting to carry them through the middle passage to Surinam were they were to be sold as slaves. Unknowingly, this was to be the Leusden’s tenth and last transatlantic voyage. 

So, the Dutch West India Company (WIC) slave ship set sail from Ghana on November 19, 1737.  However, on January 1, 1738 it was caught in a violent storm near the Maroni River off the Surinam coast. When the captain realized the ship was sinking he instructed the crew to lock the captives below deck in the ship’s hull for fear that they might stampede the lifeboats.

    

Thirty-seven crew members and sixteen slaves managed to escape in the lifeboats and reach Paramaribo, the capital of Surinam where 14 of the captives were sold. There were two little boys who were carted away as presents for a business partner in the Netherlands. However the company associate in question had died by the time the boys got there. 

In total the six hundred and eighty captives shackled below and abandoned, perished at sea. The sinking of the Leusden has been described as the largest death toll of its kind in transatlantic slave trade maritime history.

This dark secret in Dutch history is revealed in an exhibition that has come on the back of a PhD thesis based on five years of research by the historian Dr Leo Balai. He states “Not much research has been done on slave ships which were indispensible for the transport of African captives to the territories in the Americas. This is remarkable because the treatment of captives on the slave ships may give us a clearer picture of how this forced transport of people was organized.”   “The story of the Leusden was never told in Holland,”

“If you look for a list of shipping disasters in Dutch history, you won’t find it,” said Remmelt Daalder, a senior curator at the Maritime Museum. “It was not seen as important. It was a large loss in terms of money, but no one seemed to mind that it was a large loss in human lives. No one was punished, and in fact, some of the crew members got a reward because they were able to save a box of gold from the ship.”  

According to Dr Balai, “It was the largest murder case in the history of the slave trade, but no one ever talked about it.” 

The exhibition encourages visitor participation with a rendition that provides insights into what the captives must have endured on board the Leusden. For example, in the museum visitors walk though a doorway marked 'De Zwarte Bladzijde' (The Dark Chapter) listening to a recording of what the captives must have been talking about. Hanging from the ceiling are paper tags which have the names, ages and dates of capture.

However despite historical memory efforts such as these some have argued that the majority of white Dutch society remains decidedly silent about slavery issues, the role played by the country in the trade and its effects on their present descendants.  

Calling for an attitude change to the legacy of Dutch slavery, Dr Guno Jones, Senior Researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam challenges the dominant Dutch historic narrative. “The story of these victims is not often mentioned because history used to be written by the powerful. That’s silenced history, but silence can be disrupted.”

Kathleen Ferrier, former Dutch politician and daughter of the first president of Suriname has stressed the importance of discussing slavery “If you do not know the shared past, you cannot work together for the future. The past always comes back to the fore, so it is important to put it into words.”  (Andreas Havinga, Ecumenical News International, September 19, 2012 )

The slave trade helped build a world economy and is often described as the first globalization system. It can be argued that we cannot be selective about shared histories by dividing them into mutually exclusive categories for the purpose of glorifying certain aspects while other parts remain less visible. 

Remembering The Maafa

The Dusable Museum of African-American History and Trinity United Church of Christ have joined forces to celebrate Black History month in America by providing a forum that will “inform, educate and … remember the transatlantic slave trade." The partnership is funded by the Illinois Amistad Commission and partially by a CityArts Grant from the city Department of cultural affairs.

The jury is still out as to exactly how many people were forcibly transported from Africa. However, various writers typically state that between 11 and 13 million slaves were shipped out with 90% landing in either the Caribbean or Americas.

Already off to a good start, hundreds turned out on Sunday (2/2/14) to Trinity Church, 400 W. 95th St., Focusing on Ghana in the first series of “Maafa : Journey of Remembrance” , the history of how the slave trade began was examined.  On Wednesday, there will a documentary on Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian leader who led the nation to independence in 1957 at the DuSable museum.

Introduced by Dr Marimbi Ani in her book Let the Circle Be Unbroken: The implications of African Spirituality, the term Maafa is a Swahili word that means “disaster, terrible occurrence or great tragedy.”  Some academics would rather use the term “African Holocaust” to describe the history and continuing impact of the transatlantic slave trade on African people. Others such as Dr. Youngblood, a Baptist Church Pastor in America, New York prefer Maafa. 

“One of the ways I further describe it to people is what Hitler did in Nazi Germany, he called it ethnic cleansing, but the victims called it the Holocaust,” Dr Youngblood explains. “In that our Jewish brothers and sisters have coined their word, Holocaust, that is theirs. And so we are blessed to coin our word that talks about our experience, and that word is Maafa.”

Ali Mazuri who is of a different opinion argues that even though the word Holocaust is associated with Jewish genocide it originates from Ancient Greek, therefore cannot be used as a trademark by anyone. Nevertheless, it could be argued that using African terminology may help not only to give the transatlantic slave trade an authentic voice but also a distinctive cultural identity.    

On Febuary 9, 16 and 23 the subject matter will focus on Haiti, New Orleans and Chicago respectively. Alternatively, on the 12, 19 and 26, DuSable will provide insights into the Haitian Revolution; the land, people and culture of New Orleans; and “A History of Blacks in Chicago” which will be in the form of a panel discussion.

According to the Chicago Sun Times, a DuSable spokesman Raymond Ward has said that  “Visitors will travel from the shores of Ghana to the slave plantations of the Caribbean, on to the slave ports of New Orleans and conclude with the Great Migration north to Chicago.” He believes that by embarking on this journey “participants will gain spiritual, cultural and historical perspectives.”