Slavery history

button-theme-slavesSlavery history

Use the list below to discover how places in Wales are connected with the history of slavery. The stories can also be accessed on your mobile by scanning our QR codes at each location.

We are adding more stories to the list – please check the page again later.

Further reading:
Legacies of British Slave-ownership website - information and database about slave owners
Slave Wales, The Welsh and Atlantic Slavery 1660-1850, by Chris Evans, University of Wales Press, 2010
Transatlantic Abolitionism website - maps venues where ex-slaves from USA gave talks

 

Slave owners
Bangor - Richard Pennant rebuilt Penrhyn Castle with some of the proceeds of Jamaican sugar procution using hundreds of slaves
Rhyl - a vicar changed his name so he could inherit Caribbean estates and slaves
Llangernyw, Conwy CB - Hafodunos Hall rebuilt by Henry Sandbach, compensated with £15m in today’s money for freed slaves
Hope, Flintshire - the vicar and his wife sold their Jamaican estate and over 100 slaves c.1790
Llowes, Powys - Thomas Beavan received compensation for freed Jamaican slaves, as a trustee
Llangattock, Powys - local benefactor George Miles came from a Bristol slave-owning family
Fishguard - militia founder William Knox’s wealth came from rice farming using slaves in Georgia, USA
Swansea - slave-owner and copper magnate Pascoe Grenfell built a mansion on the side of Kilvey Hill
Chepstow - Piercefield was owned by two unrelated slave-owners. One had an enslaved mother and achieved high office locally

Slave trading
Anglesey - John Morris was involved in transporting slaves to India, including one he bought and sold himself
Bridgend - Bristol slave trader and owner Sir James Laroche was buried in Pyle churchyard in 1804

The anti-slavery movement
Caernarfon - anti-slavery meetings held in the Guildhall, above East Gate, in 1828 and 1830
Brecon - in 1826 residents agreed to petition Parliament on the “unjust, cruel” use of slaves
Pembroke - meeting in 1830 unanimously backed sending anti-slavery petitions to Parliament
Neath - anti-slavery meetings were held in the town hall in 1830 and 1832
Neath - abolitionist ironmaster Joseph Price set up a fund in 1834 to buy a Bible for each freed slave
Usk - an early meeting against slavery was held in the town hall in 1792

Slavery supporters
Newtown - social reformer Robert Owen used slave-produced cotton in his mill and opposed abolition

American slavery
Caernarfon - former slave Moses Roper spoke at Capel Pendref in 1841
Pwllheli - Baptists heard a talk by fugitivie slave Moses Roper in December 1841
Bala - Hallie Quinn Brown, daughter of slaves, gave a recital at the Victoria Hall in 1899
Conwy - preacher Samuel Roberts voiced complex views on slavery while living in Tennessee in 1860s
Rhyl - Hallie Quinn Brown, daughter of slaves, spoke and sang at the Town Hall several times in 1898
Denbigh - fugitive slave James Watkins spoke at the town hall in 1858 of cruelty still suffered by slaves
Ystradgynlais - Moses Roper spoke at the Independent chapel of his torture as a slave and his escape
Swansea - Jessie Donaldson and relatives ran safe houses in Ohio to help fugitive slaves
Cardiff - fugitive slave Moses Roper spoke at the recently built St Mellons Baptist Church