In Greater Manchester
- How money from slavery made Greater Manchester
- The importance of cotton in north west England
- The Lancashire cotton famine
- Smoking, drinking and the British sweet tooth
- Black presence in Britain and north west England
- Resistance and campaigns for abolition
- The bicentenary of British abolition
Global
Africa, the arrival of Europeans and the transatlantic slave trade
Slave whip
Date unknown
Rope and birch
Object number NMLH.1992.910
Given by Alderman Charles Pearce, 1980
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View images © People's History Museum
Britain abolished the slave trade throughout its empire in 1807, although slavery itself was not abolished until 1833. In North America's southern cotton states, however, slavery continued for several decades, as it did in many other parts of the world.
The use of shackles, handcuffs and whips in slave markets and on sugar and cotton plantations had always been one of the most shocking aspects of slavery for abolitionist Europeans and Americans. Such items were still in use in the early 1860s, on the eve of the American Civil War. Escape attempts were common and the use of shackles, whips, guns and dogs played a major part in ensuring the ongoing enslavement of black Africans.
This information was provided by curators from the People's History Museum.