Birmingham and Slavery

It came to my attention recently that this year is the 200th anniversary of the passing of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 which intended to outlaw slavery within the British Empire. Given Birmingham's industrial heritage and the concentration of Quakers here (who were somewhat instrumental in campaigning against slavery) I was toying with doing a series of posts on the subject, especially as there's quite a bit of material online (such as this photo essay on abolitionist Joseph Sturge's statue at Five Ways).

So it was with interest that I noted this article on Indymedia about a protest next Thursday in Perry Barr.

Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, comedian and activist Mark Thomas, Reprieve, Amnesty International, and Guantanamo campaigners will deliver a ‘birthday cake’ to Hiatts of Birmingham on the 5th anniversary of the opening of the infamous detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The event is to highlight Hiatts' achievement in consistently providing outstanding service to the slave trade and unsavoury regimes around the world.

The activists will arrive at Hiatts on a 7.5 tonne truck with folk band “Seize the Day” to ‘celebrate’ the 5th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay’s camp on Thursday 11th January 2007.

Hiatts manufacture the shackles used by the US military in the notorious Guantanamo Bay over the last 5 years. Hiatts' has never missed a business opportunity in over 200 years from supplying "nigger collars" to the slave trade to shackles used during torture to various unsavoury regimes.

It's probably worth noting that Hiatts also supply handcuffs to the UK police and many other law enforcement agencies across the world some of which are not evil but it's the historical resonance here that's really interesting. While Birmingham has a proud history of campaigning against slavery it also benefitted greatly from the trade whether indirectly along with the rest of industrial Britain or directly in the case of manufacturing metal restraints. And some of those companies are still in operation.

There's more on Birmingham's slavery past on the Connecting Histories site, from where the above image was pinched. Information on that coin can be found here.

[Update: BBC report on the protest.]