Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A radical change of heart: Robert Wedderburn's last word on slavery

2016; Frank Cass & Co.; Volume: 37; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0144039x.2015.1117255

1743-9523

Ryan Hanley,

Colonialism, slavery, and trade

ABSTRACTThis article introduces to modern scholarship An Address to Lord Brougham and Vaux, a recently rediscovered anti-abolitionist tract by the black radical author and orator Robert Wedderburn, written in 1831, towards the end of his life. It gives a brief biography of the author and introduces some of the key themes that characterised his earlier work. Questions of authenticity and authority are raised in the context of earlier appropriations of Wedderburn's already fluid authorial identity and the specific social and political circumstances surrounding the text's publication. A transcript of the text is provided with some minor elisions. Notes on contributorRyan Hanley is Salvesen Junior Fellow in History, New College and Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Address for correspondence: New College and Faculty of History, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.Notes1. Devon County Record Office, Addington MSS, Corr. 1819; 'Unrest, Lord Sidmouth to H. R. H., Prince Regent, 12 Aug 1819', cited in Robert Wedderburn, The Horrors of Slavery, and Other Writings, ed. Ian McCalman (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1991), 23; Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (London: Verso, 2000), 289; Michael Morris, Scotland and the Caribbean, c.1740-1833: Atlantic Archipelagos (London: Routledge, 2015), 169; Alan Rice, Radical Narratives of the Black Atlantic (London: Continuum, 2002), 11; Eric Pencek, 'Intolerable Anonymity: Robert Wedderburn and the Discourse of Ultra-Radicalism', Nineteenth-Century Contexts 37, no. 1 (2015), 61; Wedderburn, Horrors, ed. McCalman, 117; The Hull Packet, 3 March 1823.2. The Axe Laid to the Root, 1 (1817), 3; Robert Wedderburn, The Horrors of Slavery (London: R. Wedderburn, 1824), 4–5.3. Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, 1B/11/6/9, 'Manumission of Slave Registers', ff. 37–8, cited in Nadine Hunt, 'Remembering Africans in Diaspora: Robert Wedderburn's "Freedom Narrative"', in Slavery in Africa and the Caribbean: A History of Enslavement and Identity since the Eighteenth Century, ed. Olatunji Ojo and Nadine Hunt (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 178, 194 n. 18.4. Robert Wedderburn, An Address to the Right Honourable Lord Brougham and Vaux (London: John Ascham, 1831), 4, 3.5. Guildhall Library, London, St. Katherine Kree, P69/KAT2/A/01/MS7891/1, 'Register of Marriages, 1754-1785', no. 335; The Axe Laid to the Root, 5 (1817), 71.6. London Metropolitan Archives, MJ/SP/1795/10/034, 'Robert Wedderburn, 3 October 1795'.7. Robert Wedderburn, Truth, Self-supported: Or, a Refutation of Certain Doctrinal Errors, Generally Adopted in the Christian Church (London: W. Glindon and G Rieubau, [c. 1802]).8. BL, Add. MSS 27808, 'Thomas Spence: Collections for a Memoir of, and of the Spenceans', f. 322.9. For Spence and the Spenceans, see Iain McCalman, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornographers in London, 1795-1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), esp. 7–180; Malcolm Chase, 'The People's Farm': English Radical Agrarianism 1775-1840 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 45–120.10. McCalman, Radical Underworld, 132–9.11. Robert Wedderburn, Cast-Iron Parsons, or, Hints to the Public and the Legislature on Political Economy (London: R. Helder, 1820).12. Wedderburn, Horrors, ed. McCalman, 1.13. Bell's Life in London, 29 February 1824; 21 March 1824; 28 March 1824.14. Wedderburn, Horrors.15. See Bell's Life in London, 7 November 1830.16. For Wedderburn's burial see Sue Thomas, Telling West Indian Lives: Life Narrative and the Reform of Plantation Slavery Cultures 1804-1834 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 116.17. Helen Thomas is one of the few scholars to discuss Wedderburn's religiosity in depth. Helen Thomas, Romanticism and Slave Narratives: Transatlantic Testimonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 255–65. Wedderburn, Horrors, ed. McCalman, 26–8; McCalman, Radical Underworld, 55–70. More recently, Sue Thomas has gone as far as to define Wedderburn's Horrors of Slavery as 'both life writing and jeremiad', though this refers more to form than content. Thomas, West-Indian Lives, 99.18. For Spencean anticlericalism, see McCalman, Radical Underworld, 191–2. For Carlile's scepticism, see, for example, Richard Carlile, The Gospel According to Richard Carlile, Shewing the True Parentage, Birth, and Life of … Jesus Christ (London: n.p., 1827).19. Robert Wedderburn and Erasmus Perkins [George Cannon], The Trial of the Rev. Robt Wedderburn for Blasphemy (London: George Cannon, 1820); Robert Wedderburn and Erasmus Perkins [George Cannon], The Address of the Rev. R. Wedderburn, to the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, on Appearing to Receive Judgment for Blasphemy (London: T. Davison, 1820).20. Erasmus Perkins [George Cannon], A Few Hints Relative to the Texture of Mind and the Manufacture of Conscience (London: T. Davison, 1820); Wedderburn, Cast-Iron Parsons; Robert Wedderburn and Erasmus Perkins [George Cannon], A Critical, Historical, and Admonitory Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (London: n.p., 1820); Robert Wedderburn and Erasmus Perkins [George Cannon], High-Heel'd Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness (London: R. Helder, 1821); McCalman, Radical Underworld, 153–4.21. The Lion, 1:12 (1828), 359–61.22. Pencek, 'Intolerable Anonymity', 61–77; Chase, 'The People's Farm', 78–120; David Worrall, Radical Culture: Discourse, Resistance and Surveillance, 1790-1820 (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), 129–45; McCalman, Radical Underworld, 97–180; Wedderburn, Horrors, ed. McCalman, 20–35; Iain McCalman, 'Anti-slavery and Ultra-Radicalism in Early Nineteenth-Century England: The Case of Robert Wedderburn', Slavery & Abolition 7, no. 2 (1986): 99–117.23. 'The Spenceans presume that the earth cannot be justly the private property of individuals [ … ] land monopoly is the cause of unequal laws'. The Axe Laid to the Root, 1 (1817), 9.24. Linebaugh and Rediker, Many-Headed Hydra, 289. See also Rice, Radical Narratives, 8, 11; Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London: Verso, 1993), 12–13.25. The Axe Laid to the Root, 1 (1817), 4.26. See, for example, The Horrors of Slavery's dedication to the archly anti-radical William Wilberforce. Wedderburn, Horrors, 3.27. Thomas, West Indian Lives, 105–17; Edlie Wong, Neither Fugitive nor Free: Atlantic Slavery, Freedom Suits, and the Legal Culture of Travel (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 63–7; Hunt, 'Africans in Diaspora', 175–98.28. Morris, Atlantic Archipelagos, 181.29. Wong, Neither Fugitive nor Free, 64.30. Wedderburn, Horrors, 15.31. Ibid., 5, 8, 7.32. See William Andrews, To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of African-American Autobiography, 1760-1865 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 32–60; John Blassingame, 'Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves: Approaches and Problems', in The Slave's Narrative, ed. Charles David and Henry Louis Gates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 75–98.33. Guildhall Library, London, St. Katherine Kree, P69/KAT2/A/01/MS7891/1, 'Register of Marriages, 1754-1785', no. 335.34. London Metropolitan Archives, MJ/SP/1795/10/034, 'Robert Wedderburn, a Rogue and Vagabond Apprehended by James Black, 3 October 1795'.35. Wedderburn and Cannon, Trial, 8.36. BL, Add MSS. 27808, Place Papers, 'Robert Wedderburn to F[rances] Place, 22 March 1831'.37. Peter Linebaugh, 'A Little Jubilee? The Literacy of Robert Wedderburn', in Protest and Survival: The Historical Experience-Essays for E. P. Thompson, ed. John Rule and Robert W. Malcolmson (London: Merlin Press, 1993), 174–220.38. Pencek, 'Intolerable Anonymity', 68–74.39. Robert Wedderburn [George Canon], Letter to Solomon Herschel, Chief Rabbi of England (London: T. Davison 1820); Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury (London: T. Davison 1820); High-Heel'd Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness (London: T. Davison, 1821); McCalman has convincingly these were actually written by Cannon. McCalman, Radical Underworld, 153–4.40. Wedderburn, Horrors, ed. McCalman, 102, n. 1; Pencek, 'Intolerable Anonymity', 61–77; Sue Thomas, 'Robert Wedderburn's Correspondent Miss Campbell', Notes and Queries, 61, no. 4 (2014): 510–14.41. Wedderburn, Address, 4, 3.42. TNA, ADM 51/617, Admiralty: Captain's Logs, 'Nabob'.43. TNA, HO 42/196, 'William Plush and Thomas Lea to Lord Sidmouth, 6 October 1819', f. 177. See also McCalman, Radical Underworld, 53.44. TNA, ADM 36/7762, Admiralty: Royal Navy Ships' Musters, 'Nabob: Storeship'. For dangers of re-enslavement at sea, see Charles Foy, '"Unkle Sommerset's" Freedom: Liberty in England for Black Sailors', Journal for Maritime Research, 13, no. 1 (2011): 21–36.45. Wedderburn, Horrors, 24. One possibility from the Nabob's muster rolls is Robert Christford, ordinary seaman, aged 20, who was born in Jamaica and enlisted in Port Royal in November 1778. TNA, ADM 34/525, Navy Pay Office: Ships' Pay Books, 'Nabob (SS)'; TNA, ADM 36/7762, Admiralty: Royal Navy Ships' Musters, 'Nabob: Storeship'.46. Wedderburn, Address, 5. See also Wedderburn's demonstration of his mastery of canonical lore in his reference to the Epistle to Philemon in ibid.., 11.47. Wedderburn, Horrors, ed. McCalman, 126–7.48. Wedderburn, Address, 8. Eric Dykes, 'Butterworth, Joseph, MP, 1770-1826', Dictionary of Methodism in Britain and Ireland, http://www.wesleyhistoricalsociety.org.uk/dmbi/index.php?do=app.entry&id=516 (accessed November 6, 2014).49. Wedderburn, Address, 6–8.50. Ibid., 5.51. Ibid., 8.52. The Axe Laid to the Root, 1 (1817), 4.53. Marcus Wood, 'William Cobbett, John Thelwall, Radicalism, Racism and Slavery: A Study in Burkean Parodics', Romanticism on the Net, 15 (1999), http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/005873ar (accessed June 23, 2015). For the consolidation of working-class anti-abolitionism by 1831, see Patricia Hollis, 'Anti-slavery and British Working-Class Radicalism in the Years of Reform', in Anti-slavery, Religion, and Reform: Essays in Memory of Roger Anstey, ed. Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher, (Folkestone: Dawson, 1980), 294–315; Betty Fladeland, '"Our Cause Being One and the Same": Abolitionists and Chartism', in Slavery and British Society, 1776-1846, ed. James Walvin (London: Macmillan, 1982), 69–99.54. Wedderburn, Address, 4, 7.55. See Wood, 'William Cobbett, John Thelwall', 9–15.56. Michael Rossington, 'Editing Shelley', in The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Michael O'Neill and Anthony Howe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 645–55; McCalman, Radical Underworld, 205; Ian McCalman, 'Unrespectable Radicalism: Infidels and Pornography in Early Nineteenth-Century London', Past & Present, no. 104 (1984): 77.57. See Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848 (London: Verso, 1988), 436–59; Henry Brougham, The Country Without a Government, or, Plain Questions on the Unhappy State of the Present Administration (London: J. Ridgway, 1830); Henry Brougham, The Result of the General Election, or, What Has the Duke of Wellington Gained by the Dissolution? (London: J. Ridgway, 1830).58. Henry Brougham, An Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers (Edinburgh: E. Balfour et. al., 1803).59. Blackburn, Overthrow, 301.60. Ibid., 322.61. Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870 (London: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 574, 599.62. Henry Brougham, The Life and Times of Henry, Lord Brougham, Written by Himself (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871), vol. 3, 37–48.63. Blackburn, Overthrow, 436.64. See, for example, The Morning Post, 14 July 1830; Henry Brougham, Corrected Report of the Speech of Mr. Brougham, in the House of Commons, Tuesday May 13th, 1830, on Colonial Slavery [sic] (Leeds: Edward Baines and Son, n.d.).65. Anon., A Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the Abolition of Slavery. By a West Indian (London: B. Fellowes, 1833).66. The Lion, 1, no. 13 (1828), 395.67. Wedderburn, Address, 11; Brougham, Speech, 9–10.68. Wedderburn, Address, 4, 3; Brougham, Speech, 4.69. Blackburn, Overthrow, 454.70. Anon., 'Preface', in Henry Brougham, Opinions of Henry Brougham, Esq. on Negro Slavery (London: H. J. M'Clary, 1830), 3–5.71. McCalman has seen Wedderburn as a counterexample to Hollis' claim that 'breaking up an anti-slavery meeting had become a statement of class-consciousness by working-class radicals' by the Chartist period. Hollis, 'Anti-slavery and British Working-Class Radicalism', 311; McCalman, 'Anti-slavery and Ultra-radicalism', 99.72. Wedderburn, Address, 15–16.73. See, for example, The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser, 13 November 1830, 2.74. BL, Add MSS. 27808, Place Papers, 'Robert Wedderburn to F[rances] Place, 22 March 1831'.