Wales & Trans-Atlantic Slavery
Discover the history and explore the archives from the National Library of Wales
Abolition of slavery poster (1838)The National Library of Wales
The Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which spanned from the 16th to the 19th century, was a disturbing and destructive period of history. It has left a lasting impression on societies today, the ways in which they behave, and the attitudes that they hold.
Wales was complicit in these events, and benefited from the products of slaving and slave labour. The library’s collections reveal the interactions that Welsh industry, politics, culture, and the Welsh people, had with slavery in the Americas.
Land and Labour
Take this letter from Gifford Pennant to his father in 1664, for example. The Pennant family of Penrhyn acquired their wealth through slaving in the Americas. The land that Gifford relays purchasing in this letter would go on to be used as sugar plantations, run by slave labour.
Confronting History
It was from the wealth amassed through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade that well-established families, such as the Pennants, were able to put considerable money back into the private estate and community at large. See Penrhyn Castle, for example.
The Bristol Company Copper Works, near Swansea (1811) by John George WoodThe National Library of Wales
Inadvertent Facilitation
Welsh involvement in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was not always the result of a conscious decision to endorse the institution, nor did it always mean directly dealing with slaves and slavery. Customary Welsh commerce and trade also played a role in the slave trade.
Smelting plants in the Swansea and Neath valleys, for example, contributed to the provision of copper for direct use in the Guinea trade, for ships used in slave voyages, and even overseas in utensils used to produce sugar and rum in the West Indies.
Industrial Involvement
As such, Welsh industry profited from slavery, as also shown when wealthy slavers, such as Anthony Bacon, invested in Welsh industries, such as iron. Bacon's role as the foremost supplier of cannon for government service revolutionised the iron industry in Wales.
In these ways, certain industries in Wales were unlikely to have triumphed in the way, and at the time, that they did if it were not for the business, and the funding, that came as a direct consequence of slaving in the Americas. Whether Welsh involvement in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was inadvertent or deliberate, distant or direct, it is crucial that we recognise and acknowledge the ways in which Wales contributed to slavery, and the ways in which slavery shaped Wales.
Anti-Slavery Literature
The interactions between Wales and slavery are also apparent in the reactions of Welsh contemporaries. Through their written works, literary figures, such as William Williams Pantycelyn, have left a record of their responses to Trans-Atlantic slavery.
Abolition of slavery poster (1838)The National Library of Wales
The Abolition Movement
Ultimately, abolition as a social movement was not as significant in Wales as it was England. Anti-slavery efforts were largely contained to select cities in the South of the country and spearheaded by political, religious and intellectual elites, and nonconformists.
The Religious Instructor, Vol. IX, No. 100 (1830-04) by Cadwaladr JonesThe National Library of Wales
Welsh Ballads
The written works of prominent Welsh writers, such as William Williams Pantycelyn, are, as such, one of the more available mediums through which to observe anti-slavery sentiment in Wales. These include books, articles, speeches and pamphlets, but also Welsh ballads.
These criticisms of slavery, through the medium of Welsh and presented in a form familiar to the Welsh people, may have aided the dissemination of anti-slavery messages throughout the Welsh community.
A Rare Ballad
Solomon Nutry's 1830/34 ballad 'Hanes, cyffes, achwyniad, anerchiad, a dymuniad y Negroes', written in Welsh, is a particularly rare example of Welsh anti-slavery literature in that there is reason to believe that Nutry's father had been a slave in the Americas.
Welsh adaptation of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1853) by William ReesThe National Library of Wales
The Role of Publishing & Print
Anti-slavery literature became increasingly popular at the turn of the 19th century. See, for example, Gwilym Hiraethog's Aelwyd F’ewythyr Robert, inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin, of which eight versions were published in Wales between 1852 and 1854.
Anti-slavery literature had the capacity to bolster anti-slavery views and fund the abolitionist movement. However, the anticipation that these texts would predominantly be consumed by a white readership often led to a censored approach to the topic of slavery, depicting it as an institution of paternalism ran by 'benevolent' masters. Furthermore, many of these texts include offensive and derogatory portrayals of Black characters, and often according to contemporary racist stereotypes.
Slave Narrative in Welsh (1779) by James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (author), William Williams (translator), Evan Evans (printer), and Shirley Walter (introduction)The National Library of Wales
Slave Narratives
Slave narratives are a particularly valuable medium of abolitionist literature in that they channel the voices of those who had directly experienced slavery. Historians have, however, disputed the extent to which white agendas may have manipulated some of these accounts.
Abolitionist Speakers
The African-American abolitionist speakers of the 19th-century further demonstrated to white audiences the capacity and the agency of freed-Black people and Black activists to tell their own stories. Those best placed to head the abolitionist movement were those who had suffered the system of oppression. Henry 'Box' Brown, William and Ellen Craft, and Moses Roper were all abolitionist speakers hosted by Wales during this time, touring the country to provide education and promote abolition.
Moses Roper in Cardiff
Included in this extract from The Cambrian, a reflection on a lecture given by Roper at the English Baptist Chapel in Cardiff in June 1838:
Cardiff 'inhabitants...were deeply interested...in a lecture [on]...Slavery in America, the boasted land of civil and religious liberty!'
The Struggle Ongoing
The war against discrimination did not end with abolition in the Americas. Trans-Atlantic slavery left an ugly impression on white attitudes towards Black people, with prejudice and bigotry plaguing communities in Europe and America. One challenge to this racialism, was music.
The Fisk Jubilee Singers
The Fisk Jubilee Singers first came to Wales in the 1870s, during a tour of Europe. Their music encouraged the Welsh to pursue their freedom of expression, and ushered in a culture of individuality.
It would appear that the singers were well-received in Wales, where they held concerts at Newport, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, and Swansea. Furthermore, it seems these tours were highly conducive in breaking down the country's white-misconceptions of Black people.
By no means was this an end, however, to the intolerances felt by the Welsh community. For example, the race riots that took place in the South of the country during the early-20th century, and the harassments to multicultural communities, such as in Tiger Bay, were evident of a Welsh reluctance to assimilate. If anything, the adoption of Jazz by the white community in Wales exemplified what persists today to be a pattern of appropriation and cultural cherry-picking.
Paul Robeson (1958-08-04) by Geoff Charles (1909-2002)The National Library of Wales
Paul Robeson
The capacity that music did have to bridge racial and ethnic barriers might latterly be seen in the country's relationship with musician, actor, sportsman and activist, Paul Robeson, who first came to Wales in 1929. Here, he speaks at the 1958 National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale.
Robeson believed that Welsh folk music was not so different from African-American spirituals. Both were the music of the people, fluid and heartfelt.
Paul Robeson, National Eisteddfod Wales (1958-08-04) by Geoff CharlesThe National Library of Wales
A Common Cause
Robeson's relationship with Wales and the Welsh had begun through a chance encounter with a Welsh miners' protest. He saw the capacity of the working-class struggle to unite people of different races and ethnicities in a common cause.
More recently, the Swansea Women in Jazz, since renamed Jazz Heritage Wales, movement has used Jazz, a musical genre originating from African-American spirituals, to teach Wales about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and celebrate Black heritage and culture.
We still have a long way to go to achieve racial and ethnic equality and tolerance. Education and awareness can help us to understand the way the world is today, and leave us better equipped to change it.
Evans, C., Slave Wales: The Welsh and Atlantic Slavery 1660-1850, (Cardiff : University of Wales Press, 2010);
Jones, D., 'James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, William Williams, Pantycelyn and the Depiction of Slavery', LlGC/NLW Blog Post;
Moore, D., 'Wales and the slave trade', LLGC/NLW Blog Post;
Owen, G.E., Welsh Anti-Slavery Sentiments, 1795-1865; A Survey of Public Opinion, dissertation submitted to University of Wales, Aberystwyth, (1964);
Sparrow, J., 'How Paul Robeson found his political voice in the Welsh valleys', The Guardian, (2017);
Willis, D., ‘Translating the language of the slaves in Uncle Tom’s cabin and representations of second-language speakers in Welsh literature’, Llên Cymru, 39:1, 56-72 (2016);
Wilson, J., Freedom Music: Wales, Emancipation, and Jazz, (Cardiff : University of Wales Press, 2019);
Jazz Heritage Wales;
National Trust;
Frederick Douglass in Britain and Ireland
