When I was at school I remember being taught about ‘The Enlightenment’, I believe I even had a text book with the title ‘The Age of Reason’. It would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I can remember the details of those lessons of over fifty years ago but I can be pretty sure the focus would have been on the advance of ideals like liberty, fraternity and toleration. Because that’s what ‘The Enlightenment’ was all about – wasn’t it?
I very much doubt there was any mention of the enslavement of Africans on an industrial scale to feed the money making machines in the Caribbean, America and the Indian subcontinent, the wealth from which built many a stately home in the UK. If slavery was mentioned at all (which I’m almost certain it wasn’t) I’m sure it would have been to explain the role of white liberals such as Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce in its abolition.
How was it possible to reconcile such high minded ideals as ‘liberty’ with the enslavement of millions? Well, simple really, Africans were not human, you might as well discuss the liberty of a farm animal. John Locke in his ‘Essay concerning Human Understanding’ was one of those who set the ball rolling by setting out a logical thought process that reached the conclusion ‘a Negro is not a man.’ Where Locke’s logic led him, others were more than happy to follow. David Hume, another of the Enlightenment’s leading philosophers, declared ‘I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all other species of men … to be naturally inferior to the whites.’ He went on ‘in Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ’tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.’
None of that looks terribly ‘enlightened’ to me.
We have made some progress since then but the contribution of black men and women is still not always given the prominence it deserves. So it is time to recognise the contribution of black abolitionists like Olaudah Equiano. Equiano suffered the horrors of enslavement but unlike millions of his fellow human beings he lived to tell the tale and write his story down. We also celebrate the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle. Unlike Equiano, we don’t know of Dido through her own words but she has nevertheless left an indelible mark on history. The daughter of an enslaved woman, her story has been uncovered through diligent research, some of which we share on the following pages.
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