Celebrating 200 years without slave trade

9:45am Monday 26th March 2007

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By Charlotte Bradshaw »

Click here to see our gallery of photos from the commemoration.

SLAVERY in East Lancashire was the focus at a special cathedral service celebrating the 200th anniversary of the trade's abolition.

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Blackburn Cathedral yesterday was attended by hundreds of people including the Most Rev Drexel Gomez, Archbishop of the West Indies, and Bishop of Burnley Rt Rev John Goddard.

Canon Chris Chivers of Blackburn Cathedral said the town had deep connections with several forms of slavery.

Lancashire merchants like Henry Sudell, whose memorial is in the cathedral, received American cotton picked by slaves.

Canon Chivers said: "Economically, it was enmeshed in the so-called slave-trading triangle'.

"They traded the products which were manufactured from this cotton, amassing huge profits in the process."

Although the slave trade in Britain was abolished by an Act passed 200 years ago, it was not abolished in America until after the Civil War, which ended in 1865.

Throughout the greater part of the 19th century, Blackburn mill owners continued to buy cotton - the fruit of slave-labour.

Canon Chivers added. "So dependent was Lancashire on this trading, that the American Civil War and consequent Cotton Famine in the States, literally brought the local economy in Blackburn to its knees."

Church and civic leaders marked abolition at an Ecumenical Evensong and heard a sermon from Archbishop Gomez.

He said: "I am pleased to give thanks for the abolition of slavery 200 years ago.

"The trade of slaves deprived between five and 20 million of their dignity, their freedom and ultimately their lives, something which is beyond imagination for us."

African music was included in the service and young people traced, through stark statistics, the brutalisation of people involved in various forms of slavery, from the world's largest forced migration into prostitution.

Harold Whittaker, 46, from Burnley, said: "It was marvellous to see so many people taking an interest in our history. I heard about it and thought I would come to listen, it's been very insightful."

Sheila Knowles, 67, of Highfield Road, Blackburn, added: "The service made me realise how lucky we are but it also highlighted that slavery still goes on today, something which many people do not know about."

Archbishop Gomez was also due to give a lecture in the cathedral tonight at 7.30pm.