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We are going to reflect on the Abolition of the Slave Trade in Britain in 1807. It is a great anniversary, two hundred years, but we also want to remember those who are still in slavery in different parts of the world.
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It is almost impossible for us to think what it must be like to be a slave. We don't realise how much freedom we have until someone takes it away. To be a slave is to have NO rights at all. Even your life or death is in the hands of someone else. You are treated as if you are nothing! It is two hundred years ago this year that we in Britain abolished the trade in people, but others carried on. We didn't abolish slavery though - that came later, we just abolished taking part in the transportation of slaves, mainly from Africa to the Americas.
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| READER 3: |
The only value of slaves was what they were worth - money. Millions were taken across the Atlantic. Few ever returned and they were separated from family, tortured and beaten and even deprived of their names. They were nothing!
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| READER 1: |
About 10-20 percent of slaves died in transit. At the height of the trade about 80,000 Africans were transported to the New World each year with Britain controlling about 40% of the trade. It is reckoned that 12.000 voyages were made carrying 2.6 million slaves. Liverpool and Bristol became wealthy on the back of the slave trade. In 1797 one in four ships leaving Liverpool was a slaver, a ship carrying slaves. People in Britain became so appalled at the trade that from the formation of the first group to lobby to ban the trade in 1797, it only took 20 years to ban it. In 1834 slavery was abolished in British colonies; in 1848 it was banned in French colonies and in the USA in 1865.
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| READER 2: |
We are going to listen to a really powerful poem written by Maya Angelou. She expresses something of what it means to be a slave and how black people will rise above humiliation and terror. The poem inspired Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Stephen Lawrence murdered in a racial incident, to write an autobiography of the same title which focuses on institutional racism:
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Reads 'Still I Rise' by Maya Angelou
(a copy can be founded at: www.poemhunter.com/poem/still-i-rise/)
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| READER 1: |
There is a lot about slavery in the Bible. There were slaves around over the centuries when the Bible was being written and, of course, the Israelites themselves, were slaves in Egypt before they were led out by Moses in the event known as the Exodus. God often reminds the people of Israel that they were slaves in Egypt and they should remember that time and take care of how they treat people. The Bible tells the Jews that they could not make slaves of each other but they could buy slaves from other people and they could be inherited as property.
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| READER 2: |
They are also told:
'Slaves who have escaped to you from their owners shall not be given back to them. They shall stay in your midst in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever they please; you shall not oppress them'.
(Deuteronomy 23: 15)
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| READER 3: |
We need to take a few moments to reflect on what we have heard. We can think in silence for a few seconds of the painful lives of slaves and the appalling things that happen to them:
'God of all mercy, your Son proclaimed good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed: anoint us with your Holy Spirit and set all your people free to praise you in Christ our Lord. Amen.'
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| READER 1: |
Britain may have stopped trading but others continued so the movement of slaves did not stop. In fact the people of Britain lost a great deal of money to other people who came in and took over the trade. £17 million was generated in Liverpool by the slave trade - and that was in 1807. Imagine how much that would be today!
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| READER 2: |
It is a bit like if today we were all willing to give up something that made our country wealthy in order for our conscience to feel good. Perhaps we could give up flying or building arms which we sell to other countries or eating things that are flown in order to save the planet.
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| READER 3: |
Or we could stop buying clothes and eating foods that threaten the existence of some animals. It isn't quite the same as slavery but some people only buy food that doesn't exploit people in other countries - Fair Trade it is called. It wouldn't stop the trade but our conscience would be clear! I think! Some huge companies have attempted to break the cycle of exploitation and slavery. We too might think about what we would be prepared to give up if we wanted to do our very best for other people.
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| READER 1: |
Listen and think about these words of Jesus:
Christians believe that all people are created in the image of God and should be treated as if they were God. Jesus in Matthew's Gospel says:
'I was hungry and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'
(Matthew 25: 42-45)
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| READER 2: |
But it hasn't always been that way, has it? Christians were involved in the slave trade and owned slaves so they didn't treat people with the respect that Jesus asks for. The Church of England owned plantations where there were slaves and in 1760 the Archbishop of Canterbury said:
'The Negroes in our plantations decrease and new supplies become necessary continually. Surely this proceeds from some defect, both of humanity and even of good policy. But we must take things as they are at the moment.' In 1834 the bishops in Parliament even voted to maintain slavery; an unbelievable event today.
There was no question of trying to change anything.
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| READER 3: |
All religions struggle with the idea that slavery and the trade in slaves is wrong. But they nearly all use language to say that they are slaves of God and want to follow the will of God. They are willing to be God's slave. It shows how the language of slavery and total subjection to an owner is accepted by religious people. Listen to this from the Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib:
'I am a bought slave of yours
And my name is Lucky
In exchange for your wise words
I have sold myself at your shop
What you command me, that I do.
How clever can your slave be
Mother a slave, father a slave
I, a child of your slaves
She the slave dances, he the slave sings
O Lord of the earth, I pray to you.'
(GGS p991)
(quoted in Human Rights and Responsibilities 2006-2007: The Journal of the Shap Working Party, p 63.)
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| READER 1: |
We need to finish by reflecting on what we can do in our small ways to make life better for people who have nothing; not even the respect of a name.
In a moment's silence:
'Let's learn to accept people not because of the colour of their skin, or because of the brand of their religion, or because they belong to this ethnic group or that ethnic group. But we accept a person because he or she is a human being. Created in the image and likeness of the God we believe in, whichever the God.'
(quoted in Human Rights and Responsibilities 2006-2007: The Journal of the Shap Working Party, p13.)
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| READER 2: |
Human rights are so important to black people because slavery undermines all their humanness... The Negro spirituals which the black slaves sang in the plantations of America were about longing for freedom. Some of the songs and hymns had secret meanings.
The spiritual, 'Steal away to Jesus' is one. Listen to some of the words of 'Steal Away' and imagine the fear and hopelessness of the slaves.
Steal away, steal away,
Steal away to Jesus.
Steal away. Steal away home,
I ain't got long to stay here.
My Lord, he calls me,
He calls me by the thunder.
The trumpet sounds within my soul;
I ain't got long to stay here.
It was used as a secret signal for a religious meeting. Other hymns talked of crossing the River Jordan into Canaan that could mean passing through death to 'eternal rest' or crossing the geographical boundary to the North, either the northern states of the USA or Canada.
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The song sung at Twickenham when England play rugby, 'Swing low, sweet chariot' is another well known spiritual. When the words 'I looked over Jordan and what did I see coming to carry me home?' are sung, it refers to the Ohio River and the 'band of angels' were freed slaves coming secretly to set the slaves free. It is one of many songs that long for a spiritual home after death or else a place where the slaves could escape from slavery. It does make you realise how dreadful slavery was, and is, if death was the best option.
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| READER 1: |
Our final reflection on the slave trade comes up to date. We must not think of the trade of slaves as a thing of the past. Today it is reckoned that 27 million people suffer brutal working conditions working for no money, under threat of beatings torture and rape. The CIA estimates that 14,500-17,000 victims are trafficked into the USA, 'the Land of the Free' every year. 600,000-800,000 people are trafficked internationally every year of whom 80% are women and children. Why can't we do more to get rid of this?
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| READER 2: |
If we are to imagine what it feels like to be slaves then we need to think about what it means to be a slave.
Listen to this story told by Angela Wood who was then living in South Africa:
'One day, hearing a bicycle bell outside, I ran into the street to see what it meant. An Afrikaner neighbour came out of her house, with her purse. There stood a Black African boy with a huge basket of corncobs on the front of his bike. She picked up one of his corncobs, peeled back the leaves and pushed a well manicured nail into one of the kernels. There was a squirt of juice. Then she picked up another and did the same. Then another and another until she had stripped the whole basket.
Finally she spoke, 'I don't think I'll buy any corncobs today. They don't look fresh'. And she turned and went indoors
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