Quaker women honoured for sugar boycott
‘Some Quakers also offered hospitality and shelter for enslaved “runaways”.'
A Sunderland Friend has spoken about the role that Quaker women played in the movement to end thhe slave trade. The talk by Ann Smith was made for the virtual unveiling of a blue plaque dedicated to the women’s activism.
Ann Smith told the Friend: ‘The plaque was erected on the site of the first Binn’s drapers store in High Street West, Sunderland, a site of redevelopment by the Tyne and Wear Preservation Trust. In the eighteenth century, High Street West was the area in which many local Quakers lived and worked and where the Meeting house became the focus for their worship and planned activities.’
In the talk on 30 June, Ann Smith outlined ‘the pivotal relationship’ between Quakers and Thomas Clarkson, who researched and provided evidence for William Wilberforce, to bring about an end to the slave trade in the West Indies. Hoping that a boycott of sugar, cotton and other products would put economic pressure on the government, activists sought to persuade people and shopkeepers to abstain from buying or selling sugar products. ‘In Sunderland and other Meetings within Newcastle Monthly (Area) Meeting, women went from house to house handing out leaflets and handbills, canvassing people to sign petitions and promoting abolitionist talks and lectures,’ said Ann Smith.
‘Some Quakers also offered hospitality and shelter for enslaved “runaways”. All this action taking place in the public sphere went against cultural norms of expected female behaviour. Sunderland’s women’s work was particularly recognised by the extraordinarily strong support they gained by the large number of grocers who joined the ban.’
The talk ended with a debate about how the boycott led to an increase in female activism, and helped highlight the links between exploitation and consumerism. ‘This was followed by a discussion on current concerns, such as combatting racial injustice and modern slavery.
According to Ann Smith, there was ‘a moving moment in which Sarah, a participant, identified herself as a descendant of the Richardson sisters (Quaker women from Newcastle), who had raised funds to pay a ransom for Frederick Douglas, a leading Afro-American, former enslaved, abolitionist [see 9 July issue]. She told us how she had met with a descendant of Frederick’s and history became very much alive’.
