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East meets West Indies at Peterborough Museum display
THIS weekend (25/26 April) will see a range of activities as part of an exhibition at Peterborough Museum called Beyond the Bicentennial.
THIS weekend (25/26 April) will see a range of activities as part of an exhibition at Peterborough Museum called Beyond the Bicentennial.This aims to look at life in Peterborough and Jamaica around the time of the abolition of slavery, which happened just over 200 years ago, and to encourage residents to explore their heritage.
Hannah Gray found out more.
THE year 1807 is celebrated as the beginning of the end for the slave trade, as the British Parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act.
But behind this landmark legislation there are many stories to tell, and people living ordinary lives, both in this country and in Jamaica.
The Beyond the Bicentennial exhibition and events aim to provide a bit of insight into both worlds.
Related:
Peterborough was a quaint market town 200 years ago.
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The exhibition is up and running, and a weekend of events was staged last week, with another arranged for this weekend.
All of this was organised jointly by Peterborough Museum and Peterborough African-Caribbean Forum, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund
As well as an exhibition of artefacts from the period from the 1770s to 1838, this weekend there will be a range of activities including tea and food tasting, replica clothing to try on, children's crafts, including bead making, and traditional Jamaican games.
Visitors will be able to meet costumed characters from the period, including redcoat soldiers who guarded the Napoleonic prisoner of war camp at Norman Cross.
The period covered is what many people will know as the Regency Period, when George III was unfit to reign and his son was acting as prince Regent. It was also the time Jane Austen was writing.
Exhibits on display include items connected with tea drinking, which was very popular at this time in England, and was an industry built on the back of slavery.
"Everybody desired tea, but it was incredibly expensive at the time," said events and marketing manager at Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery Stuart Orme. "That's why we have tea caddies with locks on them, it was to stop the servants taking any."
The exhibition at the museum and the weekend events are good opportunities for members of the public to see items from the museum's collection that they may not normally get to see.
"We've had a costume project going on documenting some of our extensive costume collection. Because they are quite precious, they can only be displayed for short periods," Stuart said.
Secretary of Peterborough African-Caribbean Forum Jasmine Bennett hopes the exhibition and activities will encourage people to become interested in their own ancestry.
"I hope it will encourage people to look at their heritage and their own ancestry, as well as heritage issues generally. I'd also like them to enjoy their heritage because it's fascinating and it's a hobby you can do that doesn't involve a lot of money."
Jasmine does, however, have a word of warning.
"You will uncover stuff you don't want to see," she said. "What you find is something will come up and it will look a scandalous thing at the time and be quite upsetting, but a few days later it's addictive and you'll be back at it."
Peterborough museum is open from 10am to 5pm on Saturday, 25 Apriland from noon to 4pm on Sunday, 26 April. There will be drop-in drumming workshops at 1pm and 3pm, and storytelling at 2pm daily. Admission is free.
For more details, call the museum on 01733 864663 or visit www.peterboroughheritage.org.uk.
Next page: Act did not mean end of slavery straight away
Although the taking of slaves from Africa was outlawed by the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1807, it took a long time before most of the slaves were genuinely free...Act did not mean end of slavery straight away
Although the taking of slaves from Africa was outlawed by the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1807, it took a long time before most of the slaves were genuinely free.
Because trading in slaves in the Caribbean was still allowed, men were still bought and sold.
So life in the period covered by the exhibition was not necessarily about radical change, but about the beginnings of change.
"None of the slaves were freed apart from if their owners decided to free them, or if they saved up enough money to free themselves, which was not very common," said secretary of Peterborough African-Caribbean Forum Jasmine Bennett.
Because many slaves were still living as they were before the Act of Parliament, feelings were running high.
"For many people there was a kind of resentment because they knew about this Act. People who could read talked about it a lot because it was in the papers. White slave owners talked about it a lot in front of their slaves," Jasmine said.
"They saw Wilberforce as someone who had given them freedom. Many slaves thought that the King of England had set them free, but their slave owners were depriving them of their freedom."
But there were still forces at work to help those in slavery, often working class people in England campaigning to bring it to an end. The slaves, although touched by the work of these people, would have had no idea that those fighting for them were often themselves living in difficult circumstances, and didn't even have the vote.
"I don't think they realised that these people didn't have wonderful lives," Jasmine said. "From their perspective, they were free and they were living in England, and, for them, everyone in England lived like their slave owners.
"England was seen as a place where the streets were paved with gold. If people had said to them 'this is how they lived', they wouldn't have believed it.
"I think they really appreciated the fact that people they didn't know were fighting for their freedom."
Between about 1833 and 1838, slaves began to do unpaid apprenticeships, to help them gain skills which they could use when they were freed.
"For many people the skill was farming, which they already knew. There were some slaves who were very skilled, you had carpenters and iron workers," said Jasmine.
"And some of them had quite a lot of resources of their own. Some slaves would dress very well because they had money from the crops they grew in the field. That was a way of expressing themselves."
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