Black Radicals in Britain 1800-1850

Special Study in British Black History

  This essay will look at the lives of three people known as Black Radicals from the period of 1800 –1850.  These are Robert Wedderburn, William Davidson and William Cuffay.  The context in which all three lived, what each did in there lives in terms of campaigning and what motivated them.  The types of movements the three radicals got involved with and the impact of there work will also be considered.

In the 1800s Britain was thriving in the world economy, enjoying the industrial revolution and the free labour of slaves.  It was perfectly legal to buy, sell and own slaves in as much as the trade was not prohibited in British law.  Black peoples were used for whatever the owner wished, these slaves had no rights as a person. ~It was not uncommon to see Black people in freak shows, their features of difference being the spectacle to be glared at.

Africans were captured using various methods and taken to the West Indies on ships and sold to plantation owners for labour in the fields, Reddie describes the slave auctions saying, ‘enslaved Africans would suffer the indignity of being prodded, pulled and inspected by potential buyers, Reddie.

Slavery was the economy that built the wealth of the British Empire, poorer people from Britain were able to establish very affluent lifestyles using slaves, and ‘There is little doubt that the Transatlantic slave trade turned Africans from human beings into commodities and cargo’. Reddie

England at this period is described as ‘a country seething with revolutionary fervour,’ by Sherwood.  Poverty produced by the Corn Law 1815, the later Poor Laws and industrialisation, gave rise to groups of people wanting to oppose the government.  Working class people in professions such as tailors and cabinet makers, as well as slaves were reduced to crime to survive.  Wedderburn, Davidson and Cuffay became part of these ‘radical’ groups, looked down on by the upper classes such as slave owners, ‘A series of riots and industrial unrest occurred’. National Archives.

Robert Wedderburn was born in Jamaica , in 1762, his father was a slave owner who owned eight sugar plantations and his mother was a slave making Wedderburn a mulatto. Wedderburn himself was born ‘free’, at his father’s request on the sale of his mother to  Mrs Douglas. 

William Davidson was also a mulatto from Jamaica , (though his appearance was much more African), born in 1786, he spent time at sea and in England .  His father has been said to have been the white attorney general in Jamaica . 

Both Wedderburn and Davidson were ‘Mulatto’ which was a ‘pejorative term for the offspring, usually, of a white male and African female, and the word is a derivation of ‘mule’ – the sterile progeny of a horse and donkey’, Reddie. It was the white father’s attitude to these offspring from slaves that determined the mulattos status of freedom or not; to be educated and own property

‘At the top of the colour pyramid were the rich whites….Below them were the ‘poor’ whites…under them were ‘mulatto’…Below this grouping were pur-blooded Africans’. Reddie   This system gave Wedderburn and Davidson some mobility in society that slaves did not have, ‘Many of the free individuals were the offspring of interracial relationships,…By 1829, the people of colour (mulattos) had their own newspaper The Watchman, which called for more rights for West Indians’. Reddie

Even those who became free were able to start to progress into profession and offer their children a lift to some extent away from slavery.  Cuffay was born and baptised in Chatham , in 1788, his wife’s name was Julia.  His grandfather was an African sold into slavery and his father born in St Kitts, Caribbean, who became free worked as a cook on a warship, a freed slave. Cuffay is described as being a hard working tailor.

Wedderburn as a teenager moved to England , joining the burgeoning workers’ movement. He used pamphleting and speaking at various forums to agitate the establishment and especially regarding its use of slaves.

Wedderburn hated his father, who he was and what he represented, coming to terms with who his father was and the way he saw his mother and grandmother treated gave him the motivation for his opposition to the establishment.

Robert Wedderburn’s accounts of his mother being raped and being beaten while pregnant as well as his grandmother being flogged gives a real insight into what Black people were dealing with on a daily basis, Wedderburn.

At fourteen Davidson was sent to England to study maths, he left studying to go to sea and later joined the navy. When he returned to England , his father had set up an apprenticeship in law in Liverpool for him but he became apprenticed to a cabinet maker. Davidson also attempted to set up his own businesses, first with ‘a legacy from his mother of £1,200’, National Archives, in Birmingham and again in Marylebone with his family.  These were unsuccessful and as Sherwood puts it ‘Times were hard and Davidson was soon penniless’.  

Cuffay was brought up by his mother with his brother James and Sister Juliana. He became a tailor and was known for his singing, dancing and general warm spirit.

Wedderburn became a Methodist which was a set of Christian ideas from the Wesley brothers who used hymns to preach to congregations.  Methodists opposed slavery and believed in equality and justice, rich and poor could be saved alike. Wedderburn’s first publication was a theological piece called ‘Truth Self-Supported’. McCalman.

He later became a Utilitarian Minister and joined the Spencean movement, ‘Wedderburn’s early theological speculations contain the seeds of his later growth into a Spencean prophet and ultra-radical’. McCalman.

In 1812 he met Thomas Spence who had a set of ideas and followers forming the Spencean movement.  Spencean theory was based on challenging the causes of lower classed workers being forced into poverty, degradation and crime.  McCalman notes that Evans, one of Wedderburn’s associates in the Spencean group, believed that ‘the actions of landlords and corrupt rulers forced labourers into crime, from which Spence’s plan would rescue them’. Many people living in extremely poor conditions in Britain were attracted to the Spence plan which ‘promised a chance to regain cherished ideals of independent self-sufficiency and a respectable living standard’. McCalman. Spence was influenced by Thomas Paine who wrote The Rights of Man.

Wedderburn’s plan came from a combination of influences such the theological thinking and the Spence plan.  He laid down his theories in two publications called ‘Axe to the Root’ McCalman.  Wedderburn’s personal experiences gave him a map from which he worked with devising radical reforms of the constitution of the British Empire .  His experiences as the child of a slave in the West Indies, and being in Britain gave him a multiple perspective of the way oppression was operating. Wedderburn’s explorations of existing theories of how things should change also influenced his personal plan, Methodism, Utilitarianism and Spence’s plan.

Wedderburn gives a very blunt description of the establishment at work, how people ‘priest, kings and lords (especially landlords)’ control the economics and so peoples of Britain and the West Indies , McCalman.  Parts of his plan were supporting Spence’s ideas of land redistribution, he wanted to abolish prisons, give children education and abolish flogging and capital punishment He felt that slaves in the West Indies had power in that they could refuse to work, these ideas, ‘challenged the ideas of the ruling class…His vision was of simultaneous revolution of the poor in Europe and the black slaves in the West Indies’. 100blackbritons.com

Davidson, like Spence, read Thomas Paine’s work which influenced his ideas of reform.  He joined the Marylebone Union Reading Society and had meetings in his house forming a ‘shoemaker’s society’. At a major ‘radical’ meeting in Finsbury Park Davidson was apparently ‘armed’, guarding the flag that said ‘Let us die like Men and not like Slaves’, Sherwood. This gives a good indication of what the meetings that Davidson attended encouraged in terms of ideas that were being talked about.

Apparently at one of these meetings, a government spy named George Edwards, introduced Davidson to Aurthur Thistlewood, a ‘prison-hardened radical who had witnessed the revolution in France ’ Sherwood.  Thistlewood’s group thought that the quickest way to reform was to ‘blow up the cabinet’ Sherwood. Davidson became part of this group.  This plot is now known to be the Cato Street Conspiracy.  Wedderburn opposed the Cato Street conspiracy, criticising it for being ‘premature’, 100blackbritons.com.

Cuffay joined the trade union movement and took part in a strike in 1834 where tailors were campaigning for shorter working hours.  Due to his striking he lost his job which Fryer comments may have been the experience that ‘radicalized’ him. Five years later helped form the Metropolitan Tailor’s Charter Association having joined the Chartist movement in 1839.‘demanding universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by secret ballot, payment of MPs, and equal electoral districts’, www.100greatblackbritons.com

Chartism was campaign against the oppressions of the working class Briton.  The working class were seeing similarities between themselves and the way slaves were treated. For example under the 1834 Poor Law, families were segregated in the workhouse just as slave families were separated, Walvin.  Abolitionists were recruited into the Chartist movement after the 1833 Emancipation Act.  Chartists felt they could unify against there slavery as they had seen the Black slaves do, copying slogans such as ‘Am I not a brother and a Man?’ Walvin.

Wedderburn was known to be pamphleteer and agitator in London and the West Indies .  He sold leaflets on the street and made speeches at weekly meetings promoting ideas of Methodism and later the Spencean plan.  Wedderburn, though illiterate wrote his own works and distributed them as far as the Caribbean . A police spy reported that Wedderburn addressed a London meeting saying he was going to ‘write home and tell the slaves to murder their Masters as soon as they pleased’. Bury the Chains

Wedderburn spoke at meetings at the Mulberry Tree Tavern 1816 – 1817and Archer Street .  These types of meetings where radicals discussed the position they found themselves in were seen as drinking dens for the lowest of the low classes.

On 23 April 1819 Wedderburn founded his new chapel in Hopkins Street .

‘Twice a week for six months Wedderburn’s chapel attracted 200 or more of the most extreme and impoverished radicals in London’ McCalman. Just like the previous venues that Wedderburn spoke at, Hopkins Street had a reputation of being full of undesirables; it is often described as a brothel.

Davidson being part of a group that planned to murder the cabinet of the British government in 1820 intended to attack ministers at dinner at ‘Lord Harrowby's home in Grosvenor Square’, National Archives at, which the cabinet were all attending, according to the newspapers.  As they were about to leave the loft where they kept their weapons, they were raided by the police and arrested. A constable was killed in the scuffle of the arrests. 

Cuffay held many important positions as a public figure within his campaign work, two years after the forming of the MTCA; he was; elected by the Westminister Chartists to the delegate council and chaired the ‘Great Public Meeting of the Tailors’ where the national petition was adopted in 1842.

When Chartist national leaders were arrested he was appointed president to a five man interim committee.

Opposing Parliament directly, Cuffay was on the committee that challenged the bill that would empower employers to be able to imprison employees for two months. He was a strong supporter of the Chartist land plan being one of the three delegates send to the Land Conference in Birmingham 1846.

Cuffay was repeatedly elected as National Land Company joint auditor, was one of ten directors of National Anti-Militia Association and a member of Democratic Committee for Poland ’s Regeneration.

Cuffay managed the procession taking the Chartist Petition to Parliament which caused Westminister to evacuate and barricade all the buildings as if expecting war.  After the Charter was rejected Cuffay became involved in the Ulterior Committee’s planned uprising against the government.

Wedderburn went to prison several times for what he said in opposition to the government and ‘Wedderburn was eventually charged with "blasphemous libel"’ 100blackbritons.com. Found guilty he was sentenced to two years in Dorchester Prison.

 Wedderburn published a brief autobiography called The Horrors of Slavery (1824) when he was released. ‘He continued to campaign for freedom of speech and in 1831, at the age of 68, he was arrested and sent to Giltspur Street Prison’. 100blackbritons.com.

For participating in the attempted Cato Street conspiracy, Davidson and four others charged with high treason were hanged on 1 May 1820. This was the last time anyone was hanged and decapitated in London .

Cuffay was also arrested before the Ulterior Committee uprising was carried out; he was sentenced to transportation for life and taken on a 103 day voyage to Tasmania , arriving on 29 November 1849, Fryer.  Though more recent accounts are giving different details, ‘In August 1848, Cuffay was arrested, on the information of police spies, for conspiring to levy war against the queen. He was probably aware of the plot, but was not a supporter of it’. 100blackbritons.com He was sent to Tazmania for life but was pardoned in 1856. It may be that Cuffay was not as involved as originally thought from the account in court.  Again in October 1869, Cuffay was admitted to the Tasmania workhouse, ‘in whose sick ward he died in July 1870’. 100blackbritons.com

Wedderburn communicated by writing to the Caribbean via a secret route of distribution.  These became very powerful as the Jamaican Assembly gave freedom to any slave who handed a copy of Wedderburn’s writing into the authorities and a free person would be rewarded with a slave, Bury the chains.

The Spencean group that Wedderburn joined was well known for trying to disrupt the status quo, ‘The government became very concerned about this group and employed a spy, John Castle, to join the Spenceans and report on their activities’. 100blackbritons.com

Cuffay had a great impact on society when ‘he (Cuffay) was successful in the agitation for the amendment of the colony's Master and Servant Act. He was described as a 'fluent and effective speaker' who was always popular with the working classes..’ 100blackbritons.com

Wedderburn, Davidson and Cuffay all came from slave backgrounds and were privileged to see from multiple perspectives how the system of slavery worked.  Experiencing the Caribbean and then England left them with no doubt as to the effects government decisions were having on slaves and poor people in Britian.  Though the Abolition Act 1807 and the Emancipation Act 1833 were past during the lifetimes of Wedderburn, Davidson and Cuffay, they all campaigned against oppression until they died.  The active roles they played show that ordinary people were very much involved in the anti-slavery movement, as opposed to the ‘misconception that Africans waited for European abolitionists to free them from slavery’, Reddie.

All three could be said to be un-educated, though all three held high positions of recognition amongst ordinary people and the government establishment.  Wedderburn is note by McCalman who says, ‘We would not ordinarily expect someone with his back ground of dislocation, poverty, criminality and illiteracy to speak out, exercise political leadership and trouble the governments of his day, but Wedderburn-and others like him- managed to do all three’.

Wedderburn, Davidson and Cuffay were all involved in both anti-slavery and anti-oppression in Britain .  They all recognised poverty as being created by the government and in turn were all involved in plots to overthrow the British government.  They were not violent in nature but were willing to take up arms for equality and freedom, ‘Despite his mildness of character, Cuffay was a left-wing, militant Chartist from the beginning. This militancy earned him recognition in the press of ruling class.’ 100blackbritons.com

It should be noted that much information at the time and survives to date had come from spies working for the government, ‘In October 1816 Castle reported to John Stafford, supervisor of Home Office spies, that the Spenceans were planning to overthrow the British government’. 100blackbritons.com so exact fact s are difficult to find. Though this is the case, it can be seen from what is available that Wedderburn, Davidson and Cuffay had common backgrounds which led them to have similar experiences and further got involved in movements that saw the establishment as selfish and cruel, working against the people.  This involvement in groups led to commonly themed plans to overthrow the government.

Some keys components of these movements were relevant to Wedderburn, Davidson and Cuffay; slavery, land reform, violence against peoples, poverty and impoverished ness, family and security and education of children.

Many freedoms enjoyed today would not have been achieved without campaigners and people like Wedderburn, Davidson and Cuffay who were willing to put themselves in great danger publicly opposing the government, for example, ‘Robert Wedderburn was instrumental in achieving the freedom of the press in Britain in the 19th century’. 100blackBritons.com

Word count: 2840

Bibliography:

Wedderburn, Horrors of Slavery and other Writings (ed by McCalman), 1991

McCalman, Radical Underworld Prohets, Revolutionaries, and Pornographers in London , 1795-1840, 1993

Fryer, http://www.oxforddnb.com/articles/71/71636-article.html?back=

Sherwood, http://www.oxforddnb.com/articles/57/57029-article.html?back=

Walvin, Slavery and British Society 1776-1846, ch 3, Fladeland

Reddie, Abolition! The Struggle to Abolish Slavery in the British Colonies

100blackbritons.com

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/cato.htm

Bury the chains : the British struggle to abolish slavery / Adam Hochschild, 2006

Hoyles, The Axe Laid to the Root, The Story of Robert Wedderburn, 2004