The Slave Trade

The Royal Museum of Greenwich website reports that:

Between 1662 and 1807 British and British colonial ships purchased an estimated 3,415,500 Africans. Of this number, 2,964,800 survived the 'middle passage' and were sold into slavery in the Americas. The transatlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in human history and completely changed Africa, the Americas and Europe. Only Portugal/Brazil transported more Africans across the Atlantic than Britain. Until the 1730s, London dominated the British trade in enslaved people. It continued to send ships to West Africa until the end of the trade in 1807. Because of the sheer size of London and the scale of the port’s activities, it is often forgotten that the capital was a major slaving centre. Between 1699 and 1807, British and British colonial ports mounted 12,103 slaving voyages - with 3,351 setting out from London. 

Docklands in 2017

The trade was peaking in the 1780s, just before Charles was born, but was abolished after extensive campaigning, in 1807. It was not until 1833 however that the use of slave labour on plantations in the colonies was similarly forbidden. Thus the economy continued to benefit in real terms from this execrable source of free labour. None of the slaves were ever to be compensated for their treatment, unlike their owners who were to receive payments for their 'losses', amounting to billions of pounds in today’s terms. 

There is then a direct connection between John Potter and the lands of County Down that he bought up and which subsequently made their way to Maria West and to Harriett Wombwell, and the Caribbean slave trade. As for Charles Robinson, he was born early enough to be able to witness this human cargo being disembarked into the London docks and sold off to the highest bidders. By the looks of it, he was also to receive a very nasty sting back from the trade, once the slaves had been freed, and these early English African and Caribbean migrants began to disperse around the capital and further afield.