大象传媒

Mike Boyle, Ray Costello and Mandy Batista all believe they have ancestors who were slaves and are trying to trace their family tree from Liverpool back to the plantations. The slave trade brought in much of the money on which the city's prosperity was founded but it is only recently that Liverpool has started to acknolwedge the source of its early wealth.

Mike, Ray and Mandy, each found their search for their ancestors a fascinating, but emotional experience. For Mandy, a feeling of being personal connection to pain of her slave forbears was not far distant, "When I think that my family could have been slaves, and the things they were doing to them ... oh! it's sickening! Their own traditions were stripped off them and they were labelled as cargo." Mike, even as a professional historian, found that he too was touched by the connections he made. His great great grandfather wasn't sold in Liverpool but nonetheless there are constant reminders of his slave past, "Liverpool was famous for the branding irons that they used to burn into the living flesh of the slave. It promoted the idea of prime stock - when the person was put on stage to be sold, they would look for the Liverpool brand. It's so inhumane. Every time I visit the docks and the Mersey, I have this emotional feeling ..."

Ray traced his great grandfather back to Mill Street, where he ran a dairy. His name was Edward James and it's likely that he came over from Bermuda as a cabin boy. It was probably his father, Francis, who was a slave, and a shoemaker. Ray explains the significance of his great great grandfather's trade, "Those black slaves who tried to escape, had to be found a way of being kept in one place. The most notorious way was hamstringing - a tendon was cut at the back of their heel so they couldn't run far. Those slaves were given a sendentary occupation - shoe-making being one of them."

Both Mike and Mandy uncovered elements which caused them to think again about their own past. A photograph of Mike's grandmother, taken in 1896 when she was 10 years old, showed by her smart dress indicated that she was a member of an affluent, middle-class Liverpudlian family, even though she was the grandaughter of a slave. "The plume in her hat is an ostrich feather" says Mike,"My great great grandmother paid a guinea just for a feather for her daughter's hat - it tells you something about the money that was going into the house and the quality of life ..."

Mandy was fascinated to find that her family included connections she'd never dreamed of, "My grandmother's really dark. I've never asked questions about her mother - but when my brother brought me a photograph of her, I was gobsmacked! She was white with red hair, and Irish and it was ... Wow!"

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