Questions: Where was Manchester situated historically in the era of colonial empires? Was it a colonial metropole, the capital city of a colony, or a site of colonial settlement? How is this history reflected in built form, or in structural relations with other cities?
Manchester and Colonialism – West Africa
In Manchester, colonial history is woven deep into the fabric of the city. The wealth that was established during this time mainly came from the cotton and textile industries that were rooted in slavery, oppression, and empire. The mass transportation of raw materials enabled by ships, canals, and railways served to suck wealth from the colonies into the industrial cities of Britain. Profits were based on exploitation and an elitist mindset that attempted to justify the use of raw materials to support the metropole. However, the city has also been the site for some of the most significant anti-imperialist events opposing the British exploitation of Africa, with demands for colonial autonomy and independence being made by prominent African figures within the city. This juxtaposition of colonial histories within the city is still felt today, as Manchester held a unique role over the era of the colonial empire.
Imperialism in Manchester
Britain’s involvement in slavery is sometimes cast as a success story, with the passage of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act outlawing the British Atlantic slave trade in 1807 and the passage of the Abolition of Slavery act ordering gradual abolition of slavery in all British colonies in 1833. While these acts took place almost 30 years before the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, Britain, notably the city of Manchester, still exploited the land and people of its colonies, including those in West Africa, due to the cotton industry. This exploitation occurred because once Britain stopped having its own supply of slave-picked cotton from its colonies, the country heavily depended on imports from plantations in the U.S. slave states. This dependency was to some, however, justified, because cotton helped drive the industrial revolution in Britain. As explained by historian Ben Johnson, who provides a general overview of the industrial revolution, due to the reliance on cotton, citizens “move[d] from small cottage industries, where family income was supplemented by weaving and spinning wool, towards a factory-based production line using imports from across the world” and caused the birth of the British working class (Johnson). This revolution then sparked industrialization within rival countries, creating competition that allowed for a dramatic increase in yields and booming city growth. Manchester did have a diverse economy at the time, as explained by Stuart Hylton, considering the staunch entrepreneurial activities in the city and the opening of Owen’s College, now the University of Manchester, but it still relied heavily on cotton mills as a source of growth (Hylton 2003, 151). Individuals, companies, and pressure groups pursuing further growth did not direct their attention exclusively to India, as is commonly supposed due to the cotton industries that existed there and the fact that India was a British colony (Ratcliffe 1982, 91). Instead, historian Barrie M. Ratcliffe, in the article “Cotton Imperialism: Manchester Merchants and Cotton Cultivation in West Africa in the Mid-Nineteenth Century” offers a different perspective. Manchester devoted considerable attention to West Africa as a means to secure alternate sources of raw materials. According to Ratcliffe, observing the relationship between Manchester and West Africa reveals information about the transmission of knowledge from Africa, the workings of metropolitan pressure groups, and relationships between government and local interests “in an era that some believe was anti-imperialist, or at least indifferent to empire in general and to West Africa in particular, and others see as one of imperialism and free trade” (Ratcliffe 1982, 88).
In the latter half of the 19th century, there was a significant interest evinced by Manchester merchants in West Africa as a supplier of raw cotton to supply the textile industry. These merchants, whom Ratcliffe describes as “the most self-conscious and seemingly most successful of British business pressure groups,” including the Cotton Supply Association, represented common interests of the elite within the city as they influenced the decisions made by textile businesses in Manchester (Ratcliffe 1982, 88). This choice to look to West Africa was partially driven by the anxiety and looming inevitability felt by these groups over an American civil war which would decrease the amount of cotton in the transatlantic trade routes for use. This fear was due to the dependence of Manchester and the surrounding regions on the American South as a major source of raw cotton (Harnetty 1966, 70). An article by Sven Beckert highlights this frantic stress felt by the rest of the world. Beckerts describes the activities taking place as a “mad scramble” to find ways to secure cotton due to “cotton imports from the United States [falling] by 96 percent,” leading mills to shut down for a few days each week or even entirely, leaving tens of thousands out of work (Beckert 1410). The suffering of cotton operatives and losses sustained by manufactures were not the only factor inspiring business groups to take a greater interest in West African colonies, however, as Manchester directed its efforts to find alternative cotton supplies elsewhere following similar efforts of other countries such as France and Germany (Ratcliffe 1982, 91). The local merchants proclaimed that the region had the potential to become a major supplier, which then supported the belief that West Africa would respond to changing metropolitan needs through supplying other raw materials in addition to cotton. This faith, as explained by Ratcliffe, was translated into action as Manchester’s Chamber of Commerce believed in the project so heavily it sent men to oversee the process of cotton cultivation in West Africa, especially Niger, and promised to buy all that they could grow (Ratcliffe 1982, 93).
It may seem like an obvious trope to claim that the cotton produced by the imperialist demands placed on the colonies, despite meager production rate, impacted the general populace of Manchester because it provided people with jobs and a slight boost in economic growth. Yet, West Africa was not, in the end, where the majority of Manchester’s cotton originated. Therefore, another way to understand the impact of West Africa on Manchester is to recognize the mindset of the wealthy elites in the city who had a misguided hope about West Africa’s potential. These merchants and pressure groups in the city had the incorrect mentality that the tropics, especially West Africa, were capable of providing metropoles with the tropical staples and raw materials that these cities needed and wanted to use for economic growth (Ratcliffe 1982, 87). Their belief in West Africa was not based on adequate understanding of the region, further promoting colonial and exploitative mindsets that persisted despite the claims of anti-imperial sentiments in the city and that were prompted by considerations that were only partly economic.
The 5th Pan-African Congress
From the 15th to the 21st of October 1945, Manchester hosted the historic Fifth Pan African Congress, an event that historian Marika Sherwood describes as “the first major step in the postwar struggle by people of African descent and of Africa to join together in the struggle to free themselves from yoke of British imperialism” (Sherwood 1995, 9). The 1945 Congress was organized by African activists with deep roots in Britain and is widely viewed as the most significant of the seven congresses, being held just months after the end of World War II. The war was said to have been fought in the name of freedom. However, around the globe, millions of Africans and Afro-Diaspora populations still lived under European colonial rule. Unlike the four earlier congresses, the fifth one involved people from the African Diaspora; not just Africans, but Afro-Caribbeans and Afro-Americans. The Manchester Congress brought together a number of intellectuals and activists who would go on to become influential leaders in various African independence movements and the American civil rights movement (“1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester” 2013). The Congress demanded autonomy and independence for the countries of Africa and viewed anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism as going hand-in-hand. The declaration, as explained by Christian Høgsbjerg, a Teaching Fellow in Caribbean History in an essay marking the 70th anniversary of the Congress, resulted in the acknowledgement of the way in which colonial peoples formed a global proletariat in a global capitalist system despite consideration of socialist and communist models due to the participation and oversight of “International President” of the Congress, W.E.B. DuBois. While much of the Congress’s language captured a somewhat masculinist outlook, particular forms of exploitation faced by Black women were also highlighted for the first time in Manchester (Høgsbjerg 2016).
The Congress was held in Manchester mainly because two West Indians in the Pan-African Federation had established strong community roots there and established the Negro Association in Manchester. The city had quite a multicultural community at this point, including prominent local black radical activists who were also restaurant and business owners. Because of these links and the anonymous designation as “the least prejudiced city in the UK,” as explained by an article from the Working Class Movement Library, lodging and catering was not an issue in Manchester as they were in many other cities in Britain that would not accommodate black people (“1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester” 2013). These activists also saw that the age-old connections between cotton, slavery, and the building of Manchester gave them an “important opportunity to express and expose the contradictions, the fallacies and the pretensions that were at the very centre of the empire” (Mokonnen 1973, 163-164). There was a renewed energy to meet the goals set in the conference as the Congress in Manchester concluded and its participants returned home. Yet, following the Congress, participants attempted to cement the connections forged in Manchester and “publicize the resolutions” from the Congress but nothing was ever formed (Varela 2017, 73). Despite this major event playing out in the city, these anti-colonial politics have received little celebration in Manchester memory. Høgsbjerg notes that the Congress “struggles to even register a passing footnote” in texts about the history of the city, with the only physical sign of the event being a red plaque on Chorlton Town Hall All Saints building (Høgsbjerg 2016).
Imperialism Still Present Today
Dunham Massey Hall, usually known simply as Dunham Massey, is an English country house in Greater Manchester that is now a National Trust property and open to the public. The property, originally known for its excellent hunting of deer and boar, has had a unique history, as it was and remains tied to imperialism and empire, which permeated all British society. Specific ties from the house include “money from exploits and plundering made in the East India trading company, hosting African emperors, and racial prejudice against black inheritors of the property” (“Dunham Massey, East India Trading, and Africa”). The National Trust has published a document outlining all the properties they run and their connections to colonialism and historic slavery titled “Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery.” In this report, most of the properties have a mere one to two paragraphs outlining the direct connections to colonialism; Dunham Massey’s section states:
George Booth, 2nd Earl of Warrington (1675–1758), married Mary (d.1740), daughter of the East India Company merchant John Oldbury (d.1701) in 1702. There is a family connection to colonial South Africa through Harry Grey, 8th Earl of Stamford (1812–90), who lived in Cape Colony and married Martha Solomon(s) (d.1916). After Harry’s death, his son, John Grey (1877–?), was considered the rightful heir to the Stamford title and a seat in the House of Lords under Dutch law in South Africa, but not English law, as he had been born outside of marriage. The seat was granted to Grey’s nephew, William Grey (1850–1910), who became the 9th Earl of Stamford. Roger Grey, 10th Earl of Stamford (1896–1976), was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for India, Viscount Peel (1867–1937). In 1938, Grey received Emperor Haile Selassie I (1892–1975), the exiled ruler of Ethiopia, at Dunham Massey. This ignited a lasting friendship that continued for the rest of their lives (Huxtable et. al 2020, 89).
What is most disappointing about this report is that there are no direct citations explaining where this information was gathered or direct further reading options for each location to explore other connections to colonialism. The National Trust web page about the property, however, offers a bit more insight, including the history of Harry Gray, who was mixed race as well as “born outside of marriage” which shows a direct racial prejudice history of the families who lived at Dunham Massey. Harry also married the daughter of a freed slave, Martha Solomon, and both never returned to the UK for unknown reasons (“Dunham Massey, East India Trading and Africa”). Martha, after Harry’s death, founded Battswood School in Wynberg, Cape Town which still exists and became a training college for South Africans. William Grey was a white Canadian teacher and maintained warm relationships with his South African relatives and his son, Roger, eventually gave Dunham Massey to the National Trust in 1976. Why these African connections are not explained in the National Trust Report about Dunham Massey is concerning.
This influence of imperialism was still felt today on the property, as a sundial borne by a life-size, kneeling figure of an African man was placed outside the front of the house for nearly 300 years. The statue is of “an exoticized black man wearing only a skirt of feathers, in a kneeling position and holding a sundial above his head” (Prior 2020). The statue, produced by the sculptor Andries Carpentière in c. 1735, contained a plaque until recently that read: “This sundial is in the style of one commissioned by King William III. It represents Africa, one of four continents known at the time. The figure depicts a Moor, not a slave, and he has knelt here since before 1750.” A “Moor” derives from “Blackamoor.” The term, in relation to describing people, is considered to be racist and culturally insensitive despite it also being a style of European art from the Early Modern Period that depicted stylized figures, usually African males, in subservient or exoticized form, perpetuating racist tropes especially in furniture or jewelry in aristocratic homes. (Symington 2020). In June 2020, after numerous calls were made for the removal of statues in Britain with links to the slave trade in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the National Trust made the decision to move the statue. The National Trust states that research is continuing into the history of the sundial but acknowledged that figures like this exist within the range of ‘exotica’ manufactured in support of colonial representations of the British Empire (“Dunham Massey, East India Trading and Africa”).
The city has attempted to face problems from the imperialist past with the creation of panels and programs such as The Greater Manchester Race Equality Panel, Independent Inequalities Commission, and Race Equality Policing. Despite these steps forward, there is still a shadow cast by the colonial past which, as stated by writer and journalist Joe Ronan, “requires structural change and ambitious policy to overcome because the foreign land is always with Manchester.” (Ronan 2021).
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