Volume Thirteen - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - even more aspects - Slavery - echoes of the past . . . .

Penarth Dock opened in 1865 and it may be noted that the United States of America had retained slavery for over 30 years longer than across the entire British Empire! Slavery in the U.S. was officially abolished by the ratification of the 13th Amendment during December 1865; the Census of 1860 indicates that there were almost 4 million slaves out of a population of 12.3 million in the 15 States of the US. Abolishment followed the end of the Civil War and the Amendment freed the four million enslaved but also ushered in new forms of exploitation and racial violence. It also permitted slavery as punishment for a crime!

The cotton plantations etc., of the southern states were most affected and promptly enacted restrictive 'Black Codes,' limiting freedom and forcing many into exploitative labour under local rules and laws that mirrored slavery. White Supremacy ruled okay! - the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups were born and used violence, threat and intimidation to suppress black and religious rights, creating deep racial tensions which continue into the 21st century.

John Hawkshaw wrote of his concerns in his 'Reminiscences' during his 2½ years work at the Bolívar Copper Mines in South America. Simón Bolívar declared the abolition of slavery during the wars for independence, partly in exchange for military support from the Haitian leader Alexandre Pétion and also because he needed recruits for his army. He tied 'manumission' (the act of freeing slaves) to military service.

John Hawkshaw's experiences became a major issue and discussion point when he returned to England in 1853 as his social and civil engineering network began to expand exponentially. The Hawkshaw family had close family connections with Josiah Wedgwood the Grandfather of Charles Darwin. I intend to research and write about these links in a later chapter. Charles Darwin invested almost the equivalent of £1m in the Penarth Dock project as detailed within the Chapter entitled 'Darwinian Connections.'

John Hawkshaw's wife, Ann, argued that her poems enhance God as the creator of our world rather than being diminished by the observations of the natural, social and political aspects of their fast changing world at that time. Clearly an attempt to justify Christian beliefs against the emerging evidence and theories regarding the evolution of our species, for example, which I believe to have been a common moral issue for most, if not all, faiths and beliefs of the 19th century industrial and social revolution. Hence, Ann's poem 'Why Am I Slave ?' from 'Dionysius The Areopagite' published in 1842. [1365]