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Almost 100 Bristolians received compensation after abolition of slavery
Thursday September 26 saw the launch of the 50 Plaques & Places exhibition at Ashton Court Mansion.
The exhibition was launched with support from Artspace Lifespace as part of their Artist Residences programme.
50 Plaques & Places, which has previously had showings at the Notting Hill Tabernacle and Goldsmiths University, highlights the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and its impact on Britain today.
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It is the brainchild of Gloria Daniel who, with support from SOAS University, asked 50 British and Caribbean artists, academics and activists to nominate places across the UK connected to the enslavement of African people.
Their testimonials are featured at the exhibition alongside 50 plaques highlighting the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.
The original 50 Plaques are laid out across a table at the Ashton Court exhibition – photo: Seun Matiluko
The 1833 Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery in most parts of the British Empire.
To compensate former enslavers for “loss of property” the British government paid reparations which ultimately amounted to £20m.
The government used a loan to pay this money which was finally paid off, with contributions from British taxpayers, in 2015.
As well as the 50 original plaques, the Bristol exhibit also features 96 illustrations of plaques which identify every Bristol resident who received reparations following abolition.
The Bristol exhibit also features 96 illustrations of Plaques which identify Bristolians who received reparations following abolition – photo: Seun Matiluko
The names were gathered with support from Dr Nicholas Draper, the former director of the UCL Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, who provided confirmation on all plaque figures.
One of the plaques names Thomas Daniel, a prominent 19th-century Bristol businessman who claimed ownership over several enslaved people in Barbados, including Gloria Daniel’s great-great-grandfather, John Isaac.
Thomas Daniel was an ancestor of Emily Greville Smyth who, alongside her husband John Greville Smyth, used to own Ashton Court Mansion.
It is estimated that up to 3.4m people were trafficked in the transatlantic slave trade – photo: Seun Matiluko
Gloria created the 50 Plaques & Places exhibit through her non-profit, Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved Africa Corrective Historical Plaques (TTEACH Plaques).
TTEACH Plaques has three goals listed on their website:
– To educate the wider public on the extent to which the slave economy was the foundation of much of modern Britain including many of its largest cities.
– To identify plantation owners and merchants by name, enabling descendants to conduct research into their own family history and to seek their own reparative justice.
– And most importantly to finally commemorate the African and Caribbean peoples who were enslaved.
Part of the Ashton Court exhibit features a clock, designed by Gloria, which is counting down to the bicentenary of the 1833 Abolition Act – photo: Seun Matiluko
Gloria was inspired to create TTEACH Plaques after meeting “protest royalty” Althea Jones-LeCointe while on the way to a climate protest in 2017.
Jones-LeCointe was one of the Mangrove Nine – nine Black people who were charged with “incitement to riot” following a peaceful protest outside the Mangrove restaurant, in London, in 1970. They were all acquitted.
At the time, Jones-LeCointe became one of the first Black people to represent themselves in a British court.
Gloria bumped into Jones-LeCointe on the London underground and confessed she didn’t hold much hope the protest she was going to would change the needle on climate change.
Jones-LeCointe told her off for thinking this way and reminded her of her power.
The TTEACH Plaques exhibit includes posters highlighting the injustice of paying reparations to slave holders – photo: Seun Matiluko
Gloria, a former antiques dealer and entrepreneur, said Jones-LeCointe was trying to bring home to her “that when you give up, you’ve given up”.
Reflecting on this, Gloria started thinking about what she could do to create change.
In 2020, following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, the toppling of the Colston statute, and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, Gloria decided to interrogate her family history.
After researching her family name on the UCL database, she came across a descendant of Thomas Daniel called Ruth Hecht.
The Bristol exhibition pays tribute to Gloria’s family, including her father who moved from Barbados (then a British colony) to England in 1957 – photo: Seun Matiluko
BBC Bristol documented their first in-person meeting at Bristol Cathedral, where they visited a memorial to Thomas Daniel under the Rose Window.
The memorial described Daniel as a “respectable merchant”.
Gloria got very upset upon seeing this: “Words are important.”
She added: “That (memorial) just really got to me. I thought this hypocrisy cannot be allowed to sit.
“So, I had a meeting with the bishop, the dean and bishop Joe Aldred (the then principal officer for Pentecostal, Charismatic and Multicultural Relations at Churches Together in England) and said we need to have a plaque in the church.”
The exhibition incorporates poetry from former Barbados poet laureate Esther Phillips and Bristol based poet Ros Martin – photo: Seun Matiluko
At 6pm on October 9, Gloria will get her wish when her father unveils a six-foot memorial plaque to their ancestor John Isaac at Bristol Cathedral.
However, as well as paying homage to her great-great-grandfather, Gloria was keen to encourage more public conversation about legacies of slavery and to do something concrete to support the global movement for reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans.
So, she created TTEACH Plaques towards the end of 2020, to “start the conversation”.
After spending months researching using the UCL database and the National Archives – “I’m a vociferous reader” – and visiting several historical landmarks, including St Mary’s Church in Henbury, Gloria has been able to put on three TTEACH Plaques exhibitions thus far.
The exhibition features a quilt, designed by Sandra Daniel, that contains messages of hope from descendants of enslaved Africans – photo: Seun Matiluko
Gloria has been supported along the way by multiple family members, including her sister Sandra who co-curated the Ashton Court exhibition.
She hopes to put on a fourth TTEACH Plaques exhibition at the Tate Modern soon.
Gloria works on TTEACH Plaques full-time and has funded her work with support from universities like SOAS alongside her personal savings.
TTEACH Plaques is not currently accepting donations and, while Bristol24/7 was at the exhibition, had to turn down a donation request from a visitor from Easton who wanted to support TTEACH Plaques because “people need to be educated”.
Ashton Court has one permanent plaque acknowledging some of the Smyth family’s links to slavery – photo: Seun Matiluko
As well as organising more exhibitions, Gloria also hopes to translate her research into a book.
She said: “What you’re seeing here (at the exhibition) is a tiny fragment of the research that’s been done.
“You know, this is just one voice and I think it’s important for us as individuals to understand we have agency.
“Even in the small things, we can get some kind of justice.
“I want to show people that even ordinary people can do something.”
The 50 Plaques & Places exhibition is at Ashton Court from September 26 to October 5. Tickets are free. For tickets and more information, visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/50-plaques-places-at-ashton-court-mansions-bristol-tickets
A memorial to Gloria Daniel’s enslaved ancestor John Isaac will be unveiled at Bristol Cathedral on October 9.
Main photo: Seun Matiluko
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