12/30/2023 0 Comments Quest for infamy slave trader part 2The Northern Star, the newspaper of the United Irishmen movement which was operated by some members of Belfast Charitable Society, including Robert Simms and Samuel Neilson, would tell its readers that ‘every individual, as far as he consumes sugar products becomes accessory to the guilt. Thomas McCabe was not alone in fighting for the abolitionist cause in the town. On the night the prospectus was presented Belfast Charitable Society member Thomas McCabe attended the meeting and declared – ‘May God wither the hand and consign the name to eternal infamy of the man that will sign this document’. For one local and radical citizen, this was anathema. Waddell Cunningham was the lead figure in this venture. His eldest son, another Valentine, lived in the Caribbean for some 33 years and was elected a member of the Barbados House of Assembly.ĭr William Drennan (© National Museums NI)īack in Belfast in 1786, a group of local businessmen considered launching a new Belfast-based slave-shipping venture that, in their eyes, might bring fresh prosperity to the town. He had established a thriving agency in Barbados buying and selling to the planters. He imported rum and sugar into Belfast as well as running a wine merchant business. Valentine Jones was another founding member of the Society. Dr William Haliday, a physician to the Poor House, owned sugar estates on the island of Dominica. Other members of the Belfast Charitable Society were also involved in the slave trade. Both men made their fortunes and purchased an estate in the Ceded Islands which they called “Belfast.” Together they established a firm, which by 1775 had become one of the largest shipping companies in New York. Waddell had gone to America in the 1750s and with a business partner, Thomas Gregg, a founding member of the Belfast Charitable Society. Waddell Cunningham, a member of the Belfast Charitable Society is probably the most infamous advocate of slavery in Belfast as he attempted to open up the town as a slave port. As was the practice at the time, these estates and businesses would have exploited slave labour to harvest crops such as sugar and tobacco. This article explores the abolitionist and pro-slavery elements within the town of Belfast in the late 1700s and early 1800s.īelfast had many wealthy merchants who owned land, estates and businesses in the West Indies in the 18th and 19th Centuries. As part of Black History Month we have previously explored the story of Equiano, the freed slave and abolitionist, and William John Brown, an enslaved man who found freedom in Belfast.
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