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General Resources Useful Web Links March 2007 Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Hertfordshire's Hidden Histories Project
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Black History

General Resources

The history of the presence of Black People in Britain

• Acrobat pdf, 85kb/2 pages, 16/05/2008, black_exhib_resource_2008.pdf

Black History Month Assembly 'Unsung Heroes - Unheard Voices' new

A Powerpoint Presentation by St Michael's Catholic High School History Department:

• Adobe pdf, 2.48MB, 43 pages, 04/02/2008, black_history_month_assembly.pdf

Mary Seacole

Resources for teaching about the life and times of a famous Victorian woman.

• Mary Seacole - The Mary Seacole Trunk  

New BBC Schools Programmes (KS2 but also suitable for KS3)

• www.trumedia.co.uk/v21_primary_bbc.htm

Black Britons BH33 - From Roman Times to the 2nd World War
Gandhi and Mandela BH34 - Clear accounts of these two key figures plus archive footage
Email Orders: sales @trumedia.co.uk

£49.90 +VAT (DVD and Pack)

Black Pride Posters from Badger Publishing, Stevenage

• www.badger-publishing.co.uk/

Set of 12 A3 colour posters of influential black people - £29.38. ISBN 978 - 1 84691 - 079 - 1
Baroness Amos, Chinwe Roy, Charles Drew, Kelly Holmes, Mae Jemison, Mary Seacole, Martin Luther King Jr, Oswald Boateng, Rageh Omaah, Sol Campbell, Trevor Nelson, Benjamin Zephaniah

Positive Images

Positive Images specialises in supplying 'quality, affordable, eye-catching' posters'. They present 'images of people who dared to dream'. 'Discuss the contributions they made to our everyday lives and the obstacles and scepticism they overcame' . 'Great educational tools for cross-cultural awareness.'

• www.multicultural-art.co.uk/
  

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Useful Weblinks

BBC Web Site

Website with biographies of famous people - includes a few historic black people (Olaudah Equiano, Mary Seacole, Marcus Garvey):

• www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/

WW2 People's war - Archive of WW2 memories - Activities for Schools: Black and Asian Involvement:

• www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/about/lzone_sources
  _blackasian.shtml

The Arrival of the Empire Windrush: Stories of people who came to Britain in June 1948:

• www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/arrival_01.shtml

Origination

Origination 'brings together the wealth of web resources recording and celebrating the contributions of immigrant cultures to contemporary Britain'

• www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/O/origination/
  

National Archives

Black Presence : Asian and Black History in Britain 1500-1850 with Virtual Tours exploring London Bristol and Liverpool and An 18th century Voyage of Discovery

• www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/

Caribbean Histories Revealed, is an online exhibition from The National Archives. The exhibition traces the history of the British Caribbean through Colonial Office records from the 17th century to 1926. From maps and photographs, to letters and petitions, it brings to life over 300 years of life in the Caribbean.

• www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/caribbeanhistory/

Moving Here

Moving Here explores, records and illustrates why people came to England over the last 200 years and what their experiences were and continue to be. It offers free access, for personal and educational use, to an online catalogue of versions of original material related to migration history from local, regional and national archives, libraries and museums.

• www.movinghere.org.uk/

General History site

Includes sections on Black people in Britain; slavery; civil rights movement

• www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

Black Presence in Britain

• http://blackpresence.co.uk

100 Great Black Britons

• www.100greatblackbritons.com

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March 2007 -Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (1807 – 2007)

25 March 2007 marked 200 years to the day that a Parliamentary Bill was passed to abolish the slave trade in the former British Empire. 1807 marks the beginning of the long road to the eventual abolition of slavery itself within the former British Empire via the Act of 1833. Even then slaves did not gain their final freedom until 1838. Although slavery was finally abolished in the Americas in 1888, it is estimated that over 20 million people are still in forms of servitude today.

In the video ‘Listen We’re Aiming High’ (MECSS 2005) young people reflect on the content of the History they are taught in school. They express concern that the only aspect of Black people’s history that is offered is their experience of slavery and that this is usually presented in a negative way, with no attention paid to black people’s resistance or to their part in the abolition movement.

Useful weblinks re the background to the Celebration of the Bicentenary:

The National Maritime Museum, National Museums Liverpool, Bristol Museums and Art Gallery, British Empire and Commonwealth Museum and Hull City Museums and Art Gallery have collaborated to produce materials for schools about the trans-Atlantic slave trade to support the teaching of history and citizenship.

Freedom: A KS3 History Resource about Britain and the Transatlantic Slave Trade (National Maritime Museum)

• www.nmm.ac.uk/freedom/

Also useful information and questions for students to research:

• www.learningcurve.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot27/snapshot27.htm

Government statement about the plans for the Bicentenary events etc.

• www.culture.gov.uk

BBC Web Site

• www.bbc.co.uk/abolition/

Interesting site focussing on Bristol and the Slave Trade

• www.historyfootsteps.net/

National Archives Learning Curve
How did the Abolition Acts of 1807 and 1833 affect slavery?

• www.learningcurve.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot27/snapshot27.htm

Parliament and the British Slave Trade - ideas for lessons and historical sources

• www.parliament.uk/slavetrade/

Slavery - basic information

• www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Lslavery07.htm

Very useful material is also to be found in the book

‘Slavery: An Introduction to the African Holocaust’ ISBN 0 9524789 0 0

Distributed by:

Race Equality Management Team,
Liverpool Education Directorate,
22 Sir Thomas St
Liverpool L1 6BJ

The exhibition ‘The History of the Presence of Black People in Britain’ is available for hire to Hertfordshire schools and organisations.

Please phone the MECSS Resources Librarian Tel: 01462 618628 or 618626 for information.

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Hertfordshire’s Hidden Histories Project

The Project aims to raise awareness of the Bicentenary. Historical sources will highlight the contribution made to the County by people of African descent, beginning with those who came here as slaves, and show their role in the abolitionist movement.

Examples include:

• People of African descent were brought to Hertfordshire as slaves to work on landed estates from as early as 1570. George Edward Doney, born in the Gambia, was enslaved and brought to the estate of Cassiobury, where he served the Earls of Essex for 44 years. His image is seen in a painting by Turner which hangs in Tate Britain. His grave is in the churchyard of Watford Parish Church.
• A monument in Wadesmill commemorates the spot where Thomas Clarkson sat down to rest on his journey from Cambridge to London and made the decision to devote the rest of his life to the abolition of slavery.
• There is a memorial window in Berkhamsted Church to the poet William Cowper, who was born in Berkhamsted and wrote anti-slave trade poems -

Canst thou, and honour’d with a Christian name,
Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame?
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed?

(from ‘Charity’ 1782)

Further information about the Project can be obtained by contacting:

Dr Jill Barber, Heritage Services Manager (Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies at County Hall, Hertford Tel: 01992 555100)

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