Slavery archive used in online course

The University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) holds an extensive repository of rare and fascinating historical records, images and personal papers of organisations and individuals, not only relating or connected to the University, but of local, national and international significance.

Helen McLaughlin, Principal Archivist of the University of Melbourne Archives’, estimates that the archive, which was established in 1960 primarily for the purposes of historical research and dates from the first years of the colony of Victoria, now equates to over 18 kilometres of shelf records, approximately a third of which constitute business collections.

Of these, UMA holds two separate collections containing correspondence and records documenting slavery and associated trade in the Caribbean, Africa and South America.

“The papers of the Bright and Hayward families are unparalleled in Australia, and have international significance as rare and discrete sets of letters and business correspondence,” Ms McLaughlin says.

The Hayward correspondence, which was donated to the University of Melbourne Archives in 2011, contains letters sent from the family plantation in Pieterszorg, Surinam to England and Holland between 1700 and 1851, and relate to the family business in the production and trade of sugar and coffee, and the related slave trade.

“Combined with the extensive Bright Family papers which document plantations, trade and slavery in the Caribbean, the Hayward letters add to what is becoming an important collection of Atlantic studies research material at the University of Melbourne,” Ms McLaughlin says.

“Of particular note is the fact the Hayward collection spans the period after the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807, but continued under Dutch colonial rule in Surinam, and elsewhere in the Dutch colonies, until 1863.”

According to Trevor Burnard, Head of the University of Melbourne’s School of Historical and Philosophical Studies and an internationally renowned scholar of the history of early British America with a particular interest in slavery, the Bright archive is one of the most important of its type relating to slavery in the West Indies, the business history of the 18th century, and imperial history. 

“It is almost unprecedented in the depth of its coverage and in the longevity of the records,” says Professor Burnard. “Moreover, it starts earlier, is a bigger and more informative archive than is usual, and is remarkable for the range and frankness of the topics covered. 

“It shows just how important slavery was to the making of the British Empire, including the making of Australia, and its modernity and capitalist orientation.”

In Professor Burnard’s estimation, the Hayward archive, while not as broad in scope or coverage as the Bright papers, is inherently valuable for its illustration of a little known but fascinating side of British involvement in the 18th and early 19th century Atlantic world, that is, plantation production in Surinam.

The Bright papers, which include business and family correspondence relating to the plantations owned and run by the family in Jamaica, contains original plantation maps, and a register which lists each slave – by first name only – their country of origin, age and skin colour, comments regarding ‘condition’, attributes or deformities and, if female, whether she had had children, and finally, a column listing the price or value of the slave.

For Jeff Borland, who is co-ordinating the University of Melbourne free Coursera online subject Generating the Wealth of Nations, the Bright and Hayward collections of correspondence and records offer the thousands of students around the world who are taking the course an invaluable access to primary sources which are unique to the University of Melbourne.

“The material is fascinating for a contemporary audience, providing living material from an era marked by entirely different social and moral values and mores,” says Professor Borland. 

“It also shows how the archive can be a wonderful resource for teaching, providing online access enabling students to engage with primary historical sources in a way that would not otherwise be possible.”

Professor Burnard agrees on the importance of such an archive for both research and teaching purposes.

“They are a magnificent resource, and although I’ve not used them in teaching yet, would certainly like to do so,” he says. 

“They hold a wealth of material on an early modern topic that is fresh and exciting and relevant to students’ interests in slavery.”

www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/archives/

www.coursera.org/#unimelb