Welcome to the fourth week of York St John University Geography’s Black History Month blog posts, celebrating black landscapes, people, and histories in geography and the environment! This week, we are spotlighting scholars who have contributed to geography, starting with Stuart McPhail Hall.
Stuart Hall. Credit: The Open University. Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). https://www.flickr.com/photos/the-open-university/15587677477/
Stuart McPhail Hall (1932-2014) was a Jamaican-British scholar whose pioneering cultural studies works is a great influence on contemporary cultural geography.
At the age of 11, he won a scholarship to Jamaica College, a top secondary school in Jamaica. In 1951, he won a Rhodes scholarship to Merton College, the University of Oxford where he obtained a MA in English. Influenced by observed class disparity in Jamaica, the Suez crisis and the Soviet invasion of Hungary, he moved away from the study of literature to explore social theories. In about 1957, he founded the Universities and Left Review, a journal centred on a rejection of the dominant ‘revisionist’ orthodoxy in British politics.
In 1960, the journal was merged with New Reasoner to form the influential New Left Review with Stuart Hall as the founding editor. He joined the University of Birmingham in 1964 and in 1979 he became a professor of sociology at the Open University. From 1995-1997, he was the president of the British Sociological Association. In 2005, he was elected fellow of the British Academy and in 2008, he received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award for Culture. Stuart Hall is regarded as one of Britain’s leading cultural theorists.
The sculpture Gilt of Cain, which stands in Fen Court, London, is by artist Michael Visocchi and poet Lemn Sissay. It commemorates the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and was unveiled by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu in 2008. Credit: diamond geezer. Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/51170948124/.
The Slave Compensation Act 1837: There have been many calls for the British government to compensate all African & Caribbean descendants. So, if one hears about a “slave compensation” it might be assumed that this has gone to the freed slaves to redress the injustices they suffered. Only that the money was paid to owners of slaves, who were being compensated for the loss of what had, until then, been considered their property.
The Act was not aimed at a more equal society, rather it was meant to further benefit the slave owners who were already enriched through buying and selling slaves. Slave owners were paid approximately £20 million in compensation in over 40,000 awards for freed enslaved people. Payments of the bonds to the descendants of creditors were finalised in 2015.
The sculpture Gilt of Cain, which stands in Fen Court, London, is by artist Michael Visocchi and poet Lemn Sissay. It commemorates the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and was unveiled by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu in 2008. Credit: George Rex. CC Attribution Share Alike Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0). https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersg/14266377756/
Black musicians have through their music influenced British society and culture. John Blanke represents the long existence of black musicians and their influence at British royal courts. John was a royal trumpeter in the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII and remains the only black Tudor for whom there is an identifiable image. There are other accounts of black musicians in Britain in 1504.
There are also records of black musicians in Bristol in the eighteenth century. Thus, long before the current generation of black British musicians such as Stormzy, there have been many black musicians that have played a significant part in the music industry in the UK.
Aldwyn Roberts (Lord Kitchener) was a regular performer on BBC radio. Winifred Atwell is the first black musician – male or female – to have a UK No.1. She’s also thought to be the first black artist in Britain to sell a million records.
Ignatius Sancho. Credit: National Gallery of Canada. Public domain (from commons.wikimedia.org).
Voting in British elections has not been restricted by race, but rather gender, age, income and property ownership. With such conditions that left voting rights in the hands of the aristocracy and the middle classes, one might think that no Black voter existed until the late 19th century or beyond. However, Ignatius Sancho, a writer, composer, shopkeeper, and abolitionist, is the first known Black Briton to have voted in Britain, a right he exercised in 1774 and 1780.
Credit: Luke McKernan. CC Attribution Share Alike Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0). https://www.flickr.com/photos/33718942@N07/21707199406/
He owned a grocery shop where he sold merchandise such as tobacco, sugar and tea in Mayfair, Westminster. Sancho blazed a trail for blacks in Britain. It is estimated that blacks make up a third of the 4.8 million ethnic minority voters in the UK. The ‘Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African’, edited and published two years after his death in 1870, is one of the earliest accounts of African slavery written in English from a first-hand experience.
Glasgow Streets. One of the most important clues to the history of an area comes from street names. Some of the popular street names in and around Glasgow city centre include Glassford Street (named after John Glassford); Ingram Street (named after Archibald Ingram); Buchanan Street (named after Andrew Buchanan); Dunlop Street (named after Colin Dunlop).
Glasgow streetnames, showing Buchanan Street & Nelson Mandela Place. Credit Steven Collis. Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevencollis/47615014732/
These streets are named after people who were major slave owners. During the 18th century, Glasgow was home to many slave owners who bought Africans to work on plantations and profited from it. As such, much of Glasgow’s wealth comes from the tobacco, the sugar, the cotton that was created and sustained by enslaved black people.
While Glasgow, like other British cities, is urged to do more in recognising the contributions of black people in their development, Glasgow has taken some steps. Notably is changing the name of St George’s Place in the city centre to Nelson Mandela Place. This was done in 1986, at a time when many others regarded Mandela as a terrorist. By this singular action, Glasgow brought a lot of attention to his unjust imprisonment and fight against white minority rule in South Africa.
The establishment of the “Province of Freedom” (Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone) is one of the first steps towards the abolition of the British slave trade. In 1772 slavery was prohibited in Great Britain, but did not apply to British overseas territories. Freetown was established as a permanent home for slaves (largely owned by British plantation owners in the Caribbean) brought to England.
Old Cotton Tree in Freetown. The cotton tree (Ceiba pentandra) is probably the most famous landmark in Freetown. When the group of freed slaves who settled the city first arrived on shore in 1787, they are said to have rested and prayed in the shade of this tree. Credit: bobthemagicdragon. Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). https://www.flickr.com/photos/bobthemagicdragon/7003920506/
The establishment of Freetown was championed by the British “Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor” which proposed a scheme for repatriation of the slaves to a territory in Africa where they could be free and govern themselves. In 1787, the first group of about four hundred free black slaves were sent to Freetown. Although, with African ancestry, these people were all newcomers to the continent, and they suffered various setbacks adapting into their new home.
Over 85,000 were relocated to Freetown (some forcibly) by the Royal Navy after the official British slavery abolition in 1808. These people of African descent born outside of the continent during the colonial era are part of the Creole ethnic group in Sierra Leone. The diverse sources of Freetown’s settlers—drawn from North America, the Caribbean, and Sierra Leone’s ethnic group is a strength but also responsible for competitive ethno-political identities and class formation in Sierra Leone.
Sacred Landscapes of Tigray: With over 50,000 natural, cultural and historical heritages, Ethiopia has some of the world’s richest heritage sites. Notable among these are the sacred landscapes of Tigray which include a large number of chapels, semi-caved churches, caves and caverns, dating from the 5th to 14th centuries and hidden in the folds of the mountains. These sites are a testament to a people and religion that has been practiced for centuries in a landscape that has little changed.
The landscapes provide important services in regulating air and water quality; are a refuge for biodiversity and provide barriers protecting people from natural disasters such as landslides, mudflows, or rockslides. Equally, these sites contain clues to help us better understand the history of the world and the evolution of species. Due to recent conflicts, there are fears that the heritage sites in Tigray and many parts of Ethiopia could be damaged.
Martin Heigan, Nile crocodile, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Sacred Animals: Animals hold religious and symbolic significance in African society and culture. Animals feature prominently in African cosmogonic myths by conveying the sacred power and messages. They play key roles in the identity construction of individuals, clans, and ethnic groups. From the ancient Oyo kingdom in Nigeria, Ashanti kingdom in Ghana to the Dande villages in Zimbabwe, animal metaphors convey the power of the king and royal ancestors.
This interconnection is often a way of emulating attractive characteristics such as the strength; the ability to ward off predators; protective nature; nurturing characteristics and connections to rebirth that some animals have. Drawing on fieldwork among the Ijaws of Oporoma, I (Olalekan Adekola) learned about the spiritual significance of crocodiles (worshiped as spirit beings) as a reason why the killing and/or feeding on crocodiles is forbidden in the community.
Therefore, even if on a destructive mission, the crocodile will be calm hearing the elders salute them as odha (father). Some historical records and psychological theories have suggested these relationships to be reasons why black communities have a positive attitude toward animals. The movie “Black Panther” also symbolises the importance of animals in black history.
Looking over Tanguieta. Rudi Verspoor, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.
Sacred Forests of Benin: Sacred forests are ubiquitous features of many black communities. The forests often have associated myths and taboos on the use of specific plants and hunting of certain species of animals within the area. As such, these landscapes contribute to forest conservation and are important global biodiversity repositories.
In Benin, there are thousands of sacred forests which have for centuries been preserved and protected by local communities. Studies have documented how sacred forests in Benin make significant contributions to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. They provide refugia for numerous species, providing important benefits such as pollinating insects and birds to the surrounding lands. These sites also have social benefits through inspiring community involvement in conservation, supporting local history and folklore.
In 2012 a formal law was passed giving legal recognition and protection to sacred forests in Benin, recognising them as sites where gods, spirits and ancestors reside. Similar landscapes and practices can be found in many communities in Africa and black communities in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Black American Urban Landscapes: In many American cities, “the bottom” is a term used to describe black communities within or surrounding larger—visibly segregated—urban areas where Black people were confined to live. In Washington, D.C. there is Foggy Bottom. In Detroit, Michigan, Black Bottom, and in Richmond, Virginia, Shockoe Bottom, among others. While in some instances these names have remained, the Black communities that once lived there have not. Some of these landscapes have been destroyed in the name of ‘urban renewal’ to make way for the construction of more affluent communities.
Yet, these Black landscapes matter because they can tell a lot about the struggles and the victories of blacks in North America. The book, ‘Black Landscapes Matters’ discusses how race, memory, and meaning intersect with urbanisation in America. It acknowledges the widespread erasure of black geographies and cultural landscapes and that the way Black people have built and shaped the American landscapes may never be fully known.
