‘He’s going to run,’ I said.
Mary nodded sagely, gazing up at Brabazon’s window. Shadows were moving around in the room behind the drapes.
Her yellow eyes narrowed. Her smile held a lover’s promise. ‘He won’t get far.’
*
Two years after the events described in this account, I received a visit from the abolitionists Granville Sharp and Olaudah Equiano. Old acquaintances of Tad’s, they had heard certain rumours regarding my inquiry into his murder, and wished to know more. At Sharp’s prompting, I gave them an edited version of this account, whereupon Equiano told me that another massacre aboard another Guineaman had occurred. That vessel was named The Zong, and like The Dark Angel before her, she’d run out of water during the course of the Middle Passage. Satisfied that their purchase costs were covered under the ship’s insurance policy, the crew had thrown one hundred and thirty-three African slaves overboard to drown.
Sharp expressed little surprise that such an atrocity could have happened twice. Indeed, he was of the view that many such massacres had likely occurred in the centuries since white men had discovered black gold on the Guinea coast, and had the ingenuity to insure their human prisoners as cargo. The Zong’s case differed from the The Dark Angel’s in one significant respect: the insurer refused to pay out on the claim, and the owner sued. The West India lobby, having failed to dissuade the slave merchant in question, brought all its influence to bear upon the ministry. The Cabinet conferred, and the Solicitor-General himself advocated in court on the slave merchant’s behalf.
Despite these efforts, the accounts of the massacre given in court made for uncomfortable reading in polite London society. The Zong became a symbol of the worst excesses of the slave trade, and when the judge found for the insurers upon a technical point of law, the claim was abandoned. Granville Sharp, unable to prove that an insurance fraud lay behind the massacre, tried and failed to have the crew of The Zong prosecuted for murder.
The Solicitor-General’s response to these efforts was brusque and to the point: ‘What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honourable men of murder … The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard.’
Yet people remembered. And from small acorns grow mighty oaks.
I began writing this account on the 23rd day of February 1807, the day the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was passed in the House of Commons by a count of 283 votes to 16. I walked through the lobby in the wake of the Bill’s architect, William Wilberforce, and Thaddeus Archer was walking there beside me.
I still catch sight of him sometimes, when I turn a corner too quickly, or glimpse his reflection in a mirror behind my own. I need no letters to remember. I remember him every day. The bank of the Cherwell. Sugar flowing through his fingers. The sun on the water. The curve of his cheek as he laughs.
Eram quod es, eris quod sum. I was what you are, you will be what I am.
CAPTAIN HENRY ROBERT CORSHAM
London, 12 March 1807
Historical Note
By 1781, Deptford had been a slaving port for more than two centuries. In Blood & Sugar, I have focused on that aspect of the town’s economy, and less on those that stand up rather better to modern eyes. Ship-building, the spice trade, pottery and market-gardening were among those industries important to Deptford’s prosperity and growth, though slave-trading was always strongly associated with the town. In my portrayal of Deptford, I have taken two liberties with the historical record. The town was governed in the eighteenth century by a vestry, or parish council, on which the leading local merchants would have played an important role. For the sake of simplicity, I gave my fictional merchant, Lucius Stokes, an ill-deserved promotion to mayor. As for Peregrine Child, it is likely that Deptford would have fallen under the jurisdiction of the Greenwich magistrate, with law enforcement provided by a small number of watch constables, alongside private security guards, such as Nathaniel Grimshaw.
The dramatic expansion of the slave and sugar trades during the eighteenth century, along with the growing size of the Atlantic-going Guineamen, placed the existing Thameside ports under considerable pressure. A purpose-built West India dock was the obvious solution. Plans for the new dock were not formalized until some years after the events of Blood & Sugar, and Lucius Stokes’s campaign to locate it in Deptford is an invention. However, given that many potential sites along the Thames were considered and rejected over the latter years of the eighteenth century, it is far from implausible. Work to build the new West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs commenced in 1800, and it remained one of London’s principal ports until its closure in 1980. The gleaming towers of Canary Wharf occupy that site today, along with the Museum of London Docklands, which has a disturbing and fascinating exhibition on London’s role in the sugar and slave trades.
The legal status of slaves in Britain during the period of Blood & Sugar was mired in ambiguity. The 1772 case brought by the slave James Somerset against his master, Charles Stewart, ended in victory for Somerset and those who opposed the African trade. It was widely believed that the judgement granted freedom to all black slaves in Britain, and many immediately left their masters or demanded wages. However, under a strict legal interpretation, the case upheld only Somerset’s right not to be forcibly deported to his master’s Virginian colonies. The leading abolitionist, Granville Sharp, though cheered by the decision, was unconvinced that the ruling had legally ended slavery in Britain. His opinion was shared by many slave owners.
For years after 1772, black slaves continued to be offered for sale in British newspaper advertisements, alongside rewards for the return of runaways. The threat of forcible deportation to slave-holding colonies had in theory been lifted, but it was no easy matter for black slaves to avail themselves of the courts, and covert abductions continued in the decades to come. Yet the Somerset case was one of the first real blows against the might of the West India lobby, and boosted the morale of Britain’s fledgling abolitionist movement.
Most free black Londoners continued to work as servants for their former masters, eking out a meagre wage in circumstances not greatly changed. Others became soldiers, sailors, actors and musicians. A few educated Africans, like my fictional former slaves, Scipio and Moses Graham, became well-known figures in London society. Yet life for most black men and women in Britain, whether free or not, remained extremely hard, and poverty drove some to lives of crime, beggary and prostitution. David Olusoga’s Black and British (Macmillan, 2016) and Gretchen Gerzina’s Black England: Life Before Emancipation (John Murray, 1995) give compelling accounts of these different experiences.
The massacre on board The Dark Angel is a work of fiction, but the Zong massacre was an all-too-horrific reality. Though Granville Sharp and his allies were unable to prove that an insurance fraud underpinned the massacre, the stark and brutal facts of the case, the logical and horrific consequences of treating human beings as cargo, brought the cruelty of the slave trade home to a much wider audience. For those interested in reading more about the massacre, the court cases that followed, and their impact on the cause of abolition, I recommend James Walvin’s excellent book The Zong (Yale University Press, 2011), as well as his Black Ivory (Wiley-Blackwell, 2001) for a wider perspective on the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade. The sexual exploitation of female slaves is commonplace throughout the historical record, with some slave merchants and plantation owners recounting their abuse in their diaries with appalling frankness. The sufferings endured by my fictional slave, Cinnamon, were in no way extraordinary.
Granville Sharp, Olaudah Equiano and the other early heroes of abolition sowed the seeds of a great political movement that culminated in the petitions and boycotts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Despite these efforts, the power of the West India lobby and their supporters in Parliament meant the slave trade was not outlaw
ed until 1807. It took another twenty-six years – sixty-one years after the Somerset ruling – for slavery to be abolished throughout the British Empire. Under the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, slave owners were compensated for the loss of their ‘business assets’ to the value of £20 million. This comprised forty per cent of the entire annual Treasury budget, and amounts in today’s terms (calculated as wage values) to approximately £16.5 billion.
Acknowledgements
Blood & Sugar’s voyage to publication took several years, and many people offered me their advice and support along the way. Thank you firstly to my wonderful agent, Antony Topping, and everyone at Greene & Heaton, especially Kate Rizzo. Antony guided me through the most exciting few days of my life with calmness, wisdom and appropriate levity. His enthusiasm for this book and my writing was clear from our very first meeting, and his advice is always thoughtful and considered.
An equally big thank you goes to my amazing editor, Maria Rejt, whose editorial insights and experience have been invaluable. Her excitement for Blood & Sugar was clear from our very first meeting, and her passion for good books and great writing is inspiring. Between her and Antony, I couldn’t be in better hands.
I am also incredibly grateful for the hard work of the team at Mantle and Pan Macmillan – especially Josie Humber, Kate Tolley and Rosie Wilson. And a big heart-eyes to Ami Smithson for giving Blood & Sugar such a fabulous and evocative cover.
I am also grateful to all those who read this book along the way, and gave me so many ideas and comments in the early stages. In particular: Claire McGowan and all those at City University; Hellie Ogden; and most of all, Roger Morris, who was there at the beginning and the end. Thanks also to the members of the greatest writers’ group in the world: David Young, Steph Broadribb, Rod Reynolds, Seun Thomas, Robert Hogg and Jamie Holt. And to my early readers: Luke Shepherd-Robinson, Steve Page, Martin O’Donovan, Helena Braun, Paul Heneker, Helen Sims, David Black, Julia Bye and Rishi Dastidar. And not forgetting Mark Hill, winner of the Facebook ‘Name the Eighteenth-Century Dog’ competition.
A big shout-out to my squad: the brilliant, talented, ever-supportive Ladykillers: Steph Broadribb, Nicci Cloke, Elle Croft, Fiona Cummins, Rachel Edwards, Emily Elgar, Caz Frear, Karen Hamilton, Jo Jakeman, Olivia Kiernan, Laura Marshall, Jenny Quintana, Amanda Reynolds, Laura Smy and Caz Tudor. Here’s to many more lunches at Zedel’s.
A very special thank you goes to Jeremy Duns, a brilliant author who gave an unpublished writer he barely knew hours of his time, along with his advice and encouragement when she needed it most. He says he did nothing. He did everything.
The support of my family when I decided to try to write a book touched me more than I can say. In particular, thanks to my dad, who first taught me about writing and whose bedtime stories have never left me. His love, patience and knowledge are a constant source of inspiration. My mum loved books and reading until her last days, and was so excited when I first told her that I planned to write a novel. My only regret is that I didn’t write it fast enough, as I know she would have really loved to read it.
Most of all, my thanks go to my husband, Adrian, who gives me so much love and support every day. His belief in me never wavered, and kept me going through the toughest times. If love is measured by the heart, then mine’s lost count.
Book Group Questions
How well do you feel the book portrayed life in eighteenth-century Britain and the ever-expanding London? Did you get a sense of Britain’s place in the world, and how the British viewed themselves as a nation?
How did the book make you feel about Britain’s role in the slave trade? Did the author manage to convey the horrors of the Middle Passage, despite illustrating these through character accounts rather than directly?
Did you get a sense of the tension between Britain’s reliance on slavery and the values of the Enlightenment? Are there any modern-day phenomena that this reminded you of?
Freedom is a theme of the book, not just in terms of slavery but also the freedom to live one’s life as one chooses. Which characters does the author use to illustrate this theme? How do the Spinoza quotes at the beginning of each part of the book reflect it?
What do you think was the nature of the relationship between Harry and Tad? Did that relationship make Harry a more or less sympathetic character in your eyes? How much do you think Harry’s wife, Caro, knew about the extent of their friendship?
Several unhappy marriages are depicted in the book. How did they make you feel about the choices available to women at this time? Did the lack of options open to women make you sympathize more with Caro and Mrs Monday?
How did you feel about the author’s decision to use one first-person narrator? Would the book have benefited from other points of view? Or did you like the sense of being on a journey with Harry, knowing only what he knows when he knows it? How reliable was Harry as a narrator?
Which characters did you like, and which did you dislike? Did you change your mind about any of them? For better or worse?
What were the similarities between Harry, Scipio and Tad? What were the differences?
How did you feel about the end of the book? Did you have a view on Harry’s choices and compromises? What would Tad have done differently?
First published 2019 by Mantle
This electronic edition published 2019 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5098-8080-5
Copyright © Laura Shepherd-Robinson 2019
The right of Laura Shepherd-Robinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover image: The North-West Prospect of Deptford, in the County of Kent, 1739 (engraving) / Bridgeman, Dock: Alamy
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