From 2009-2012, researchers at University College London embarked on the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project — and out of this has grown the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery (CSLBC).
Well done Maeve. If we in the US would only own and teach our past with regard to slavery, the country would be the better for it. Instead we continue to live along side Deep South states who still believe the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery and people who do not want their children to know the true history of their own families who fully participated in the ownership of slaves. Then there are those who have learned in school that the slaves were very well treated and taken care of and even as adults they take this as the gospel truth.
We still have a long way to go and a lot to learn on this subject; but this kind of writing and scholarship is both needed and timely for the US and the world.
This is an outstanding post, Maeve, and I'm interested to read subsequent installments. I have discovered the UCL database and several ancestors who appear as recipients of "reparations." One in particular, Robert Neilson, is the focus of my research. I share your interest in peeling back the resistance here in the US to confronting our heritage as exploiters of the lives of human beings and profiteers of their oppression. You write, "In the twenty-first century, institutional and infrastructural discrimination still exists," and that's what troubles me the most. Your examples, if anything, undersell the pervasiveness of the continuing discrimination over here--turbocharged now in the age of Trump. In just about any index of social, economic, or political well-being that's measurable here in the US, Black folks still lag. We tell ourselves stories about why that is, why it's not the fault of the white people in charge, and why "history" has nothing to do with it. But these are rooted in an education system which is designed to wall off mentally and spiritually any recognition of the historical implications of being a nation that embraced enslavement at its founding. Because my ancestor Robert Neilson was, to my shame, an enthusiastic participant in the Caribbean slave system after which he established himself in North America, and because he was born in County Tyrone (possibly Urney Parish, as it happens), I've developed an interest in this Irish component of the story. Anyway, looking forward to your coming posts on the subject!
Thanks so much Jamie, and I will be posting about the Neilsons in Part 2. I would strongly recommend you getting in touch with the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies (https://mellonmigrationcentre.com) and of course to visit Ulster American Folk Park if you are planning on visiting these shores. I'd be happy to chat with you more about this!
And apologies, I think that sentence of mine you quoted sounds a little glib! As if we are so evolved in the 21st C! Of course discrimination still exists - don't mean to downplay that in any way.
I wonder if a group of Urney people went over to the States together? We see group migration happen more with Presbyterian communities - many Ulster Scots settlers in Ulster then going over to the States en masse from the 1670s onwards, primarily to Appalachia. And I'm making an assumption that Rogans would likely be Catholic, Neilsons perhaps Ulster Scotch. But we'll continue to investigate from our two sides of the Atlantic!!
Well done Maeve. If we in the US would only own and teach our past with regard to slavery, the country would be the better for it. Instead we continue to live along side Deep South states who still believe the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery and people who do not want their children to know the true history of their own families who fully participated in the ownership of slaves. Then there are those who have learned in school that the slaves were very well treated and taken care of and even as adults they take this as the gospel truth.
We still have a long way to go and a lot to learn on this subject; but this kind of writing and scholarship is both needed and timely for the US and the world.
Thank you so much as always Suzanne, for reading! Always interesting to hear the US point of view, and how we teach our past.
This is an outstanding post, Maeve, and I'm interested to read subsequent installments. I have discovered the UCL database and several ancestors who appear as recipients of "reparations." One in particular, Robert Neilson, is the focus of my research. I share your interest in peeling back the resistance here in the US to confronting our heritage as exploiters of the lives of human beings and profiteers of their oppression. You write, "In the twenty-first century, institutional and infrastructural discrimination still exists," and that's what troubles me the most. Your examples, if anything, undersell the pervasiveness of the continuing discrimination over here--turbocharged now in the age of Trump. In just about any index of social, economic, or political well-being that's measurable here in the US, Black folks still lag. We tell ourselves stories about why that is, why it's not the fault of the white people in charge, and why "history" has nothing to do with it. But these are rooted in an education system which is designed to wall off mentally and spiritually any recognition of the historical implications of being a nation that embraced enslavement at its founding. Because my ancestor Robert Neilson was, to my shame, an enthusiastic participant in the Caribbean slave system after which he established himself in North America, and because he was born in County Tyrone (possibly Urney Parish, as it happens), I've developed an interest in this Irish component of the story. Anyway, looking forward to your coming posts on the subject!
Thanks so much Jamie, and I will be posting about the Neilsons in Part 2. I would strongly recommend you getting in touch with the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies (https://mellonmigrationcentre.com) and of course to visit Ulster American Folk Park if you are planning on visiting these shores. I'd be happy to chat with you more about this!
And apologies, I think that sentence of mine you quoted sounds a little glib! As if we are so evolved in the 21st C! Of course discrimination still exists - don't mean to downplay that in any way.
I wonder if a group of Urney people went over to the States together? We see group migration happen more with Presbyterian communities - many Ulster Scots settlers in Ulster then going over to the States en masse from the 1670s onwards, primarily to Appalachia. And I'm making an assumption that Rogans would likely be Catholic, Neilsons perhaps Ulster Scotch. But we'll continue to investigate from our two sides of the Atlantic!!