"Brummagem" and the slave trade

[expat66]

Came across something this morning which I had never heard of before and which demonstrates that not all history is palatable!!

I was reading a fictional book set onboard a slave ship in the 1880s and the author refers to the hold being full of 'Brummagem' to be used in exchange for African slaves. ( Ah... must be something to do with Birmingham, thinks I)

Having done a little research on the internet just now ...it seems that the term 'Brummagem' was used to describe cheap shoddy goods/trinkets/ costume jewellry etc.
and there does appear to be some evidence that such goods were exchanged for slaves ( though the term was also used for cheap goods manufactured in other places... not just Birmingham)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brummagem

I also noticed this report that the BBC did.... which implies that the industrialists of Birmingham profitted from the slave trade in the manufacture of guns and chains etc.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressr ... gham.shtml

Interesting stuff....though not pleasant..... does anyone know any more about this topic?
Expat

[linell]

I have read up on Birmingham and it's part in the Slave Trade:-

http://www.connectinghistories.org.uk/L ... _lp_01.asp

Birmingham is also known locally as Brum a jum. Written like that Expat so you can read it.

Linell.

[MarkCDodd]

Aha, now I know why my father always called his hammer a "Birmingham Screwdriver" and why I am a Brummie, not a Birmie!

Great Britain may have been involved in the slave trade but they were the first to stop it.

[Northern Lass]

moved to misc. section

[SRD]

Aha, now I know why my father always called his hammer a "Birmingham Screwdriver" and why I am a Brummie, not a Birmie!

Great Britain may have been involved in the slave trade but they were the first to stop it.

A moot point in quite a wide subject, but, if wiki is to be believed, trading in slaves was declared illegal in London in 1102, didn't stop it being done later though as a further law was introduced in 1772. Meanwhile it had been declared illegal in many countries. It wasn't until the early 19th century that Britain made slave trading illegal (and started enforcing that all over the world), an act Denmark Norway had made in 1792.

As far as profiting from the trade is concerned; it might be argued that any tradesman might have benefited, from the mine owner whose coal was used to fire the furnaces that made the iron that made the chains, to the land-owner whose trees were used to make the boats (and all the allied trades of sail making etc.). I doubt there was a businessman in Britain, or anywhere else for that matter, who didn't make some profit from slave-trade derived business.

[snoopysue]

I think you have to look at the times, I mean we can condemn it all we want, but at the time the slave trade was the norm. I don't know how aware the ordinary people were of the slave trade, most of them were having it hard enough to make ends meet for themselves.