Sir, – I note recent letters from supporters of retaining George Berkeley’s name on the modernist library in Trinity College Dublin, which reveal much about their opinion but little about historical insight (Letters, February 8th. I have dealt with similar points in my opinion piece in your newspaper (January 26th) and in an 11,000-word submission to the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group (who are tasked with reviewing the evidence for denaming the library).
Brian O’Brien (Letters, February 8th) has queried the word “abolitionist” as being relevant to US chattel slavery only from 1791, thus immunising Berkeley from any requirement to have engaged with this unique political usage of the word.
The word “abolition” was introduced into the English language by the early 15th century, Berkeley frequently used the word “abolish” in his works (twice in Alciphron alone), and the word appears in Rhode Island newspapers and in the writings of Quakers from the latter part of the 17th century. Moreover, the mistake the letter writer may be making is in seeing abolition as something granted by white people (as some sort of charitable humanity or politically motivated measure), rather than the freedom for which black people struggled from self-serving slaveholders such as Berkeley.
Abolition was pursued by the enslaved who showed by their actions that they were not property but human beings. The first abolitionist we know by name in the US was the African John Casor, who fought being declared a slave in 1654. Sadly, the wisdom of the markets prevailed and John was judged to be just a commodity, with the Virginia court determining that he should be enslaved “for the duration of his life”.
Matt Williams: Take a deep breath and see how Sam Prendergast copes with big Fiji test
New Irish citizens: ‘I hear the racist and xenophobic slurs on the streets. Everything is blamed on immigrants’
Jack Reynor: ‘We were in two minds between eloping or going the whole hog but we got married in Wicklow with about 220 people’
‘I could have gone to California. At this rate, I probably would have raised about half a billion dollars’
Berkeley probably encountered another black abolitionist called Hannibal, who was enslaved by Berkeley’s neighbour and friend, Rev James MacSparran. After Hannibal had run away and been caught, MacSparran wrote in his diary: “I got up this morning early . . . I stript and gave him a few lashes till he begged. As Harry was untying him, my poor passionate dear [MacSparran’s wife] saying I had not given him enough, gave him a lash or two.” A few days later Hannibal was whipped again, after which he ran away. He was returned by one of MacSparran’s parishioners, who pled with the good reverend to be more lenient. MacSparran did not deem it important enough to note if he or his wife were lenient in future diary entries.
It is useful to remind ourselves that Berkeley and MacSparran were among only 5 per cent to 6 per cent of the population of Rhode Island, legally entitled to do so, who held slaves at this time. This is far from a confirmation that everyone supported slavery. Rather it suggests that the enslavement of others was the preserve of a moneyed elite who could afford to do so, holding their morality in check, while continuing the vile practice of adding “halfpence to the pence” on the broken backs of black bodies. A choice, if you will.
Those who rush to defend Berkeley’s public commemoration argue from their own present convictions rather than from history, and I suppose you could even call their approach ahistorical, though the term is not without problems. They also try to conflate this historical choice to exploit black bodies by people like Berkeley with current debates about inclusivity. What is obvious is that many of the voices supporting Berkeley in this historically unsound manner do so by dismissing the black voices and actions of the enslaved as having no historical relevance. – Yours, etc,
PHILOMENA MULLEN,
Department of Sociology,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.