Restoration work has been carried out on a memorial to enslaved Africans transported on Lancaster-owned ships as part of the Transatlantic slave trade.
The Captured African sculpture, a poignant piece of Lancaster’s history on St George’s Quay, has been disassembled, cleaned and parts such as mosaics fixed and renewed to ensure its preservation for future generations.
It was commissioned and installed in 2005 as part of the Slave Trade Art Memorial project (STAMP) and remains the only public sculpture to memorialise involvement in the slave trade at a quayside.
Designed to encourage people to pause and reflect on the human cost of transatlantic slavery and its legacies, it was created by artist Kevin Dalton-Johnson with input from local young people, who made the iron figures of the captured Africans.
Mr Dalton-Johnson, who is of Jamaican descent, moved away from traditional depictions of slaves in chains and chose to create a sculpture reflecting a cross-section of a ship carrying enslaved Africans at the bottom, with layers of commodities, such as sugar and cotton they produced, stacked above them.
Councillor Martin Bottoms, Lancaster City Council cabinet member for Arts, Culture and Festivals, said: “The sculpture represents many of the enslaved individuals transported through the port of Lancaster during the 18th century and stands as a sombre and powerful reminder of the city's involvement in the slave trade.
The Transatlantic slave trade lasted for more than 300 years until British involvement was banned in 1807. Slavery was eventually abolished in most Britain colonies in 1833.
In the 1700s around 200 ships sailed out of Lancaster bound for Africa and it is thought that Lancaster merchants were responsible for the forced transportation of around 29,000 African men, women and children across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.
A sail on the side of the sculpture incorporates the numbers of enslaved Africans aboard the ships which docked at Lancaster’s port.
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