Anti-slavery sculpture is being cancelled

Memorial to the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron, by Vincent Gray, 2024

 

A remarkable and historically important sculpture is being denied a home.

From 1807, when Britain abolished the slave trade, until 1867— two years after the US finally abolished slavery after a bloody civil war — the Royal Navy patrolled the West African coast intercepting slavers and freeing those enslaved.

Over its sixty years of operation, the Squadron is estimated to have freed 150,000 slaves!

And yet, in an era when statues themselves are being 'cancelled' — removed or destroyed because those memorialised acquired their prominence through participating or defending slavery — this monument to a remarkable act in defence of human liberty is being denied a home at its most obvious location: in Portsmouth, where the Squadron was based.

The owners of the local shopping centre, Gun Wharf Quays, located by the prominent landmark, the Spinnaker Tower, initially gave permission to site the sculpture there. But subsequently they rescinded it because the memorial ‘lacked authenticity and sensitivity’ and would remind people of ‘a dark part of the nation’s history.’
    Of course, the sculpture actually reminds us of a remarkable act of national generosity, a profound atonement for the role of some British in the slave trade of the 17th and 18th centuries. The establishment of a memorial to the West Africa Squadron does not hide the history of the slave trade nor seek to sanitise Britain’s role in first trading, and then preventing the trade of Africans. Nor would it preclude or prejudice the erection of a memorial to the slaves themselves. Slavery and freedom are part of the same historical narrative and both must be remembered. This sculpture remembers the slaves and the Royal Navy together, and will prompt thoughts and questions about both enslavement and emancipation.
    Portsmouth City Council and the Historic Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, from where the Squadron sailed, have also declined the offer of the memorial. So has the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, the Historic Dockyard Chatham (where some of the ships were built) and Gosport City Council (where the ships were victualled). As [Colin] Kemp writes [in seeking a permanent home for the statue], ‘The current mood seems only to be interested in apologies and reparations’ and will not recognise the moral action, after abolition, ‘in sending ships to patrol the coast of West Africa for 60 years’.

It's almost like the cancellers want to cancel history.