multiple continents. 35 It is no coincidence, however, that the British slave trade and Swansea’s emergence as a prominent centre of copper smelting rose in tandem. 36 In fact, as this essay will posit, Swansea was intricately linked; Bristol
merchants involved in the slave trade established and invested in many Swansea
copperworks, which subsequently produced copper rods and manillas used to purchase slaves. 37 Other goods such as pans and stills were exported to plantations in the West Indies for sugar and rum production. 38 Swansea copper also indirectly facilitated the slave trade through contractual agreements with the East India Company and the Royal Navy. 39 Despite the abolition movement
rising in prominence and the numerous Acts introduced to abolish slavery, the
Cobre Company and the Royal Santiago Mining Company continued slaving
practices until the industry declined in the late nineteenth century, which was when Swansea’s involvement in the slave trade ultimately ended. 40 As this essay
will argue, these links suggest that Swansea’s relationship with the slave trade
was complex and contradicting.
Following the Restoration in the seventeenth century, the demand for
copper increased at an exponential rate due to the expansion of colonial
markets. As Nuala Zahedieh emphasised, Britain’s commodity trade increased by
approximately 90 per cent while the colonial sector grew by 360 per cent
35 Frédéric Le Play, Description des procédés métallurgiques employés dans le Pays de Galles pour la fabrication du cuivre (Paris: Carilian-Goeury et Von Dalmont, 1848), pp. 6-7 cited in Evans and Saunders, p. 4. 36 Chris Evans, Slave Wales: The Welsh and Atlantic Slavery, 1660-1850 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2010), p. 27. ProQuest Ebook Central; and Straw, pp. 8-14. 37 Chris Evans, ‘Was Wales opposed to the slave trade?’, The Western Mail, 4 October 2010. NexisUk <http://www.nexis.com> (p. 15). 38 Chris Evans, ‘El Cobre: Cuban Ore and the Globalization of Swansea Cop per, 1830- 70’, Welsh History Review, 27.1 (2014), 112-131 (p. 123); Evans and Saunders, p. 22; and Evans, Slave Wales, p. 31. 39 J. R. Harris, ‘Copper and Shipping in the Eighteenth Century’, Economic History Review, 19.3 (1966), 550-568; and Peter M. Solar and Klas Rönnbä ck, ‘Copper Sheathing and the British Slave Trade’, Economic History Review, 68.3 (2015), 806-829 cited in Miskell and Evans, p. 10; Gerald Gabb, The Rise and Fall of the Copper Industry (Swansea: West Glamorgan County Council Museum Education, 1987), p. 21; Straw, p. 45; Evans, Slave Wales, p. 31. 40 David Williamson, ‘How slavery made Wales’ industrialists wealthy at a time when the trade was officially abolished’, The Western Mail, 18 August 2010. NexisUk <http://www.nexis.com> (p. 18).
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