Musings from the Merse
Monday, June 25, 2007
SLAVES GO FREE (no pun intended)
The Paxton House website carries the following item amongst its events:
Saturday/Sunday - 30th June to 1st July ~ Grenada Weekend -
Times to be confirmed
The London youth group 'Descendants' perform plays, stories and songs based on their Grenada heritage to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slave trade.
(More details to follow)
With less than a week to go this is singularly uninformative. A pity as I think this is a really bold and imaginative idea by the Paxton House Trust given the 'Finest Palladian Mansion' in Scotland strong association with the slave trade abolished in the UK 200 years ago. The house's magnificent Adam furniture and fittings and much of the structure was almost certainly financed out of the proceeds from the Home sugar plantations in Granada. One prominent Home, Ninian, who was the Deputy Governor of Grenada as well as running the family planatations was killed in a slave revolt instigated by the French. Of course.
Lack of detailed advance publicity may reveal a certain uneasiness by the Trust over too high a profile event to mark the bi-centenary of the British abolition of the slave trade. Worries about demands for reparations? Public aploogies? Always possible I suppose. But it is a long time ago and was legal (if morally reprehensible) at the time. If the going gets tough demands for reparations can work both ways. Compensation and an apology please for the murder of the late beloved Ninian Home? Mind you it is not certain to whom that demand should be properly made. To the descendants of the rebelling slaves?
Or to the French?
A little notice in the courtyard announces : Tickets £4 Concessions £2 (and might add Slaves Free)
It should be a fun evening. Come one , Come all. After all, like the communist workers of the world, you have nothing to lose
But your chains.
The Paxton House website carries the following item amongst its events:
Saturday/Sunday - 30th June to 1st July ~ Grenada Weekend -
Times to be confirmed
The London youth group 'Descendants' perform plays, stories and songs based on their Grenada heritage to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slave trade.
(More details to follow)
With less than a week to go this is singularly uninformative. A pity as I think this is a really bold and imaginative idea by the Paxton House Trust given the 'Finest Palladian Mansion' in Scotland strong association with the slave trade abolished in the UK 200 years ago. The house's magnificent Adam furniture and fittings and much of the structure was almost certainly financed out of the proceeds from the Home sugar plantations in Granada. One prominent Home, Ninian, who was the Deputy Governor of Grenada as well as running the family planatations was killed in a slave revolt instigated by the French. Of course.
Lack of detailed advance publicity may reveal a certain uneasiness by the Trust over too high a profile event to mark the bi-centenary of the British abolition of the slave trade. Worries about demands for reparations? Public aploogies? Always possible I suppose. But it is a long time ago and was legal (if morally reprehensible) at the time. If the going gets tough demands for reparations can work both ways. Compensation and an apology please for the murder of the late beloved Ninian Home? Mind you it is not certain to whom that demand should be properly made. To the descendants of the rebelling slaves?
Or to the French?
A little notice in the courtyard announces : Tickets £4 Concessions £2 (and might add Slaves Free)
It should be a fun evening. Come one , Come all. After all, like the communist workers of the world, you have nothing to lose
But your chains.
Comments:
Post a Comment
