Antislaverybelfast

Antislaverybelfast Walking tour exploring Belfast’s involvement in the slave trade. www.antislaverybelfast.com

The Anti-Slavery Belfast tour season starts this Sunday, 11th February at 10.30am.Tours run every second week.www.antisl...
05/02/2024

The Anti-Slavery Belfast tour season starts this Sunday, 11th February at 10.30am.

Tours run every second week.

www.antislaverybelfast.com

Amazing Grace and the Ulster ConnectionSung at funerals, performed by gospel choirs, adopted by anti-Vietnam War protest...
18/05/2023

Amazing Grace and the Ulster Connection

Sung at funerals, performed by gospel choirs, adopted by anti-Vietnam War protestors and civil rights activists and covered by artists from Elvis to Bocelli, Amazing Grace is one of the most powerful and recognisable hymns of the Anglophone world. It is a divine fusion of John Newton’s verse with the stirring melody of an unknown Appalachian harmonist. It is also inextricably linked to Lough Swilly and County Donegal.

Many people readily identify with Newton’s account of his tortuous journey from spiritual desolation to unmerited redemption. During a fierce tempest, on 21st March 1748, Newton believed that Providence intervened to deliver his foundering ship to the sanctuary of Lough Swilly. Newton, ‘lost’ but ‘found’, embodied the very essence of the First Great Awakening. Such evangelical fervour helped birth the abolitionist movement that would lay siege to the transatlantic slave trade.

In truth, History and faith journeys seldom run along neat lines. Newton remained tied to slavery for the next 5 years, praying above deck whilst his human cargo festered in irons below. He left the trade primarily due to ill health. It was not until at least the mid-1750s that he renounced the slave trade and later still when he wholly lamented being “an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders”. His redemption was not immediate but it began after that shipwreck and close to Buncrana.

From the late 1400s to the 1800s, many slave owners and theologians had used their own interpretation of the Bible to justify the ‘peculiar institution’. The Catholic empires of Portugal, Spain and France and the Protestant empires of England and Holland were all culpable. Apologists contended that a free African pagan faced eternal damnation, whereas a baptised Christian slave was assured of salvation. The Atlantic slave trade began with Portugal in 1444 and its one-time colony of Brazil was the last to give up slavery in 1888. The Portuguese were responsible for over one-third of the 10 million fettered West African ‘chattels’ who survived the Middle Passage to the New World.

Newton did indeed ultimately commit to the abolitionist cause and this helps explain why Amazing Grace is so anthemic. He acutely understood the full horrors of the transatlantic slave trade - the slave barracoons on Plantain Island, the criminal neglect of those both above and below deck on the Middle Passage, and the casual cruelties of plantation life. Newton became part of one of the first successful mass movements of modern times - abolitionism. It prevailed against formidable vested interests in the Atlantic seaports and amongst the Caribbean slavocracy. This evangelical crusade, founded by the Anglicans Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, aligned Quakers, parliamentarians like William Wilberforce, highly articulate former slaves such as Olaudah Equiano and John Wesley the founder of Methodism. Their moral assault on slavery was relentless and devastating.

But back to Lough Swilly. If Newton had not experienced his own awakening in the wake of that ferocious storm, washed up, still breathing on Inishowen peninsula, he may not have penned one of the greatest hymns of the English language.

Text by Keith Williamson

Muhammad Ali was born in Kentucky in 1942. His father was Herman Heaton Clay, a descendant of slaves who had been owned ...
14/05/2023

Muhammad Ali was born in Kentucky in 1942. His father was Herman Heaton Clay, a descendant of slaves who had been owned by a white man named Cassius Marcellus Clay. Herman named his son after the owner of his ancestors. This slaveowner was inspired to free his slaves by the leading US abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. The former slaver became a very active aboltionist, and sometimes had to fight for his life against those who violently supported slavery. The original Cassius Marcellus Clay became a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. He was a general in the Union Army and protected the White House during the civil war. As minister to Russia he was involved with the purchase of Alaska, and he donated his Kentucky land holdings which were used to build the first inter-racial college in the southern states.

Frederick Douglass was a very articulate and emotive speaker and one of the most effective of the American abolitionists...
12/05/2023

Frederick Douglass was a very articulate and emotive speaker and one of the most effective of the American abolitionists who succeeded in eradicating slavery from the US. In 1845 and 1846 he visited Belfast 3 times. Join this inspiring tour to learn more.
www.antislaverybelfast.com

An old photograph of the Assembly Rooms at the 'Four Corners'. Learn how this area of town became 'anti-slavery central'...
04/05/2023

An old photograph of the Assembly Rooms at the 'Four Corners'. Learn how this area of town became 'anti-slavery central'.
www.antislaverybelfast.com

You will hear many fascinating stories on this unique walking tour, including about the abolitionist watchmakers of Belf...
02/05/2023

You will hear many fascinating stories on this unique walking tour, including about the abolitionist watchmakers of Belfast.
www.antislaverybelfast.com

Belfast played a role in promoting the abolition of slavery in the US, with regular communication across the Atlantic. C...
27/04/2023

Belfast played a role in promoting the abolition of slavery in the US, with regular communication across the Atlantic. Come along and hear about the remarkable locals who helped change the world.
www.antislaverybelfast.com

Frederick Douglass, while still a fugitive slave, stayed in Belfast at the end of his 1845 visit to Ireland. Come on thi...
25/04/2023

Frederick Douglass, while still a fugitive slave, stayed in Belfast at the end of his 1845 visit to Ireland. Come on this tour to hear what he thought of the city and its people.
www.antislaverybelfast.com

This is a scale model of Mary Ann McCracken, a famous Belfast anti-slavery campaigner. It shows her a few weeks before h...
25/04/2023

This is a scale model of Mary Ann McCracken, a famous Belfast anti-slavery campaigner. It shows her a few weeks before her 89th birthday, handing out anti-slavery leaflets to emigrants at the dockside in Belfast. Join our tour to find out more about her life, and where the full-size statue will be located.
www.antislaverybelfast.com

When Britannia ruled the waves. Find out how Britain moved from slave trading to actively ending the African slave trade...
20/04/2023

When Britannia ruled the waves. Find out how Britain moved from slave trading to actively ending the African slave trade, with a surprising Belfast connection.
www.antislaverybelfast.com

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Donegall Quay
Belfast
BT13NG

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10:15am - 1pm

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