Cotton, Colonialism and Challenge: The Blood-Stained Foundations of the First Exchange by Destinie Reynolds
The turn of the nineteeth century marked a period of rapid growth in the cotton industry, which transformed Manchester into the world’s first industrial city. Increased production of raw cotton planted, tended, picked and packed by enslaved communities, alongside technological advancements like the creation of the cotton gin, fuelled Manchester’s rise to a position of international recognition as the ‘City of Cotton’. In the industrial-imperial core, mechants and manufacturers gathered in pubs, warehouses and even on street corners to negotiate deals, primarily in cotton and textiles. These trades generated enormous profits, made possibly by the exploitation of enslaved people, who were forced to endure inhumane labour. The early nineteenth century saw the rapid growth of the cotton industry in Manchester; by 1800, the town had 42 mills, and by 1816, this number had doubled to 86.[1] This explosion in the industry, prompted Manchester’s elite to build a dedicated space for formalising business deals. A group of wealthy businessmen formed a company to create an exclusive trading space, which led to the creation of Manchester’s first Exchange which opened in 1809. This became the heart of Cottonopolis.
The Exchange was a large, grandiose building that dominated a huge area spanning the corner of Market Street all the way up to St Anne’s Square. The building occupied a significant portion of the high street and served as a stark, physical reminder of Manchester’s connections to the transatlantic slavery economy. Accessible only to the city’s industrial and business elite, along with the burgeoning middle class, the Exchange was built on land purchased from Francis Moreton Reynolds (28 March 1739 – 20 August 1808), also known as “Lord Ducie”, who had informally agreed to provide the land for the building before his death in 1808. Even before a bale of cotton was sold in the Exchange, its foundations—built on Lord Ducie’s land—were already tainted by the inhumane oppression that fuelled his super profits.
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Exchange Committee Meeting Minutes documenting Lord Ducie’s donation of the land for the first Exchange.[2]
The historical narrative about the Exchange largely omits Lord Ducie’s land purchase, thereby silencing the brutal foundations of his wealth. This research employs an antiracist lens to interrogate Lord Ducie’s, and therefore the Royal Exchange’s, ties to enslaved labour and colonial violence.
The Reynolds Moreton Dynasty
Lord Ducie was born into a wealthy aristocratic family. His grandfather, Thomas Reynolds (24 April 1745 – 12 August 1773), was the director of the South Sea Company between 1715 – 1722.[3] The company was formed in 1711 to traffic thousands of Africans to work on plantations in the Americas to generate massive profits from natural resources including, gold and silver as well as other commodities. The company was given the right to traffic and sell 4,800 enslaved people annually to ensure super profits for the company and its shareholders. Lord Ducie and his father, Francis Reynolds, were both heir directors to the company and continued to capture and violate Africans through the South Sea Company to stim. Thomas Reynolds was also an astute business and account manager who gained prevalence across the North of England. Reynolds had several clients, one of the most notable being Catherine Richards who owned the Strangeways Estate, which dominated the northern outskirts of Manchester. The Strangeways estate was a key strategic location perfect for middle-class merchants. The estates ‘green fields and pastures’ made it a desirable location for members of Manchester’s petty bourgeoise to build their homes, outside the overcrowded, unsanitary conditions of the industrialised town centre, while keeping proximity to the economic opportunities the Cottonopolis provided – at the expense of enslaved labour.[4] When Richards died in 1713, she left the Strangeways Estate to Reynolds, expanding the Reynolds family wealth and influence.[5]
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Figure 2 ‘A Plan of Manchester and Salford’ by William Green 1787 – 1794.[6]
The inheritance of the Strangeways Estate (see above) propelled the Reynolds family to regional notoriety as one of the most prominent landowners in the North of England. Thomas’s empire was passed down through the Reynolds family and inherited by Lord Ducie in 1785. Under Lord Ducie, large parts of the Strangeways Estate were leased out and occupied by several middle-class tenants such as Joseph Hague who lived on Market Street Lane in 1786.[7] Hague worked closely with the Levant Company, which imported raw cotton from the Eastern Mediterranean, to be spun by the working class Mancunians. There were also several merchants leasing land on the estate including George Lomas who is recorded as a fustian and calico printer on the Scholes’ trade directory of 1797, he also had a printing work which is annotated on Green’s map as ‘Mr Lomas’s Printing Works’.[8]
Leasing the land, Lord Ducie capitalised on Manchester’s industrial expansion by creating a haven for the middle-class flight from the rapidly industrialising town. This strategy confined the waged working class to the decaying urban core, while the profits of enslaved labourers on distant plantations in the Americas underpinned the lucrative cotton and textiles trade. Ducie reaped significant wealth through leasing and renting property connected to these industries; this exploitation of land and labour was a central to Manchester’s industrialisation, generating enormous profits for Ducie, whose family resided in the rural comfort of the Moreton Estate in Staffordshire.
Military Career and Sandy Rebellion
While enjoying surplus income from his land leases in Manchester and shares from the South Sea Company, Lord Ducie had a long military career, in which he intervened in several violent interventions in West Africa and the Caribbean to strengthen Britain’s colonial project and protect the plantation regime.
One of the most notable instances of Ducie’s military involvement in suppressing resistance was his role in quelling Sandy’s Uprisings in Tobago in 1770. This rebellion erupted amid worsening conditions on sugar plantations, exacerbated by increasing demands for sugar production. In 1770 alone, Tobago reported at least 71 freedom seekers (‘runaway slaves’), reflecting widespread discontent and resistance among the enslaved population against brutal plantation regimes.[9]
On 11 November, Sandy a young African chief who was captured and sold into slavery, stabbed his master, Samuel Hall, multiple times, leaving him for dead. Sandy and his other comrades, also enslaved on Hall’s plantation, were trafficked from the Gold Coast (modern day Ghana) and were of the Akan tribe. Enslaved peoples deriving from this region were often known as Coromantee’s and were characterised, often by plantation owners, for their fierce resistance against systems of enslavement. They fled the plantation starting the uprising, attacking the Courtland Bay barracks and taking all available arms and ammo to sustain their resistance. Sandy and his comrades had grown to a force of 30 to 50, burning plantations in sight, with the aim of causing widespread destruction to the regime.
After the rebellion broke out, leading planters on the island requested a loan of one hundred stands of arms and ammunition from the Speaker of the General Assembly of Barbados. The request was granted, along with the deployment of 20 soldiers from Grenada to assist in destruction of the uprising. The swift and violent response from the planters highlights the threat the liberation fighters posed to the plantation regime. The urgency to suppress any form of resistance underscores the strength and agency of the enslaved community in their fight for freedom.
On November 21, Lord Ducie led the HMS Quebec to Tobago to help suppress the rebellion. Soldiers from Grenada also joined the planters, ultimately crushing the revolutionary efforts of Sandy and his comrades. Extracts from a meeting of the Tobago Council on November 27 reveal the planters’ gratitude for Lord Ducie and the Navy’s intervention. The minutes stresses the importance of thanking Lord Ducie “for the readiness he showed in coming voluntarily to the relief of this infant colony, at a time when it was not only feared to be in the greatest distress from internal unrest, but also shared the danger, along with other islands, of being attacked by the natural enemies of the Crown of Great Britain from without.”
The gratitude expressed by the Tobago Council reflects how crucial Ducie’s presence was perceived to be for the protection of the plantation economy. His involvement in suppressing the Sandy Uprising exemplifies this, as Ducie led naval forces to quash the enslaved people’s pursuit of liberation, thereby reinforcing the exploitative plantation system.
Provost Marshal of Barbados
In the later period of his life, Ducie served as the Provost Marshal of Barbados, a tenure marked by torture, degradation and deterrent for enslaved communities. Ducie’s father, who previously held the same position, was central to the development and enforcement of the Slave Code in Barbados, a draconian set of laws designed to maintain control over the enslaved African population. The 1667 Barbados Slave Code outlines the definite responsibilities of the Provost Marshal, which particularly emphasised punishing runaway and rebellious slaves.[10]
Although there are fewer detailed accounts regarding the provost marshal’s role in the 18th century, it seems that the responsibilities remained largely consistent. The 1763 Act of Assembly of Barbados offers an insight into the Provost Marshal’s role in managing the sale of enslaved people including, overseeing public auctions and overseeing court orders which often involved severe punishments for enslaved individuals to maintain the brutality of the plantation regime.[11] Enslaved people were treated as property under his leadership reinforcing their alignment for the poisonous colonial project.
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1763 Act of Assembly of Barbados [12]
Lord Ducie’s super profits laid the blood-stained foundations of the Exchange before a bale of cotton was traced – creating inextricable links to the global systems of enslavement. Lord Ducie’s ties to enslavement reveal the complex of wealth, power and exploitation. The legacy of the first Exchange’s development is a testament to these concealed histories of oppression and resistance; importantly when addressing histories of injustice during the plantation regime it is vital to centre the fightback and resistance of enslaved people. These hidden histories are vital to an understanding of the development and growth of the Exchange, by uncovering these histories, the dominant colonial narrative can be challenged, making space for a more inclusive, anti-racist historical memory that honours the struggle of the oppressed.
Bibliography
[1] Matthew Stallard, ‘How Slavery Made Manchester’s World’s First Industrial City’, The Guardian, 3 April 2023, < https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/apr/03/cotton-capital-how-slavery-made-manchester-the-worlds-first-industrial-city
[2] [Accessed via Manchester Central Library, Archives+], Board of Directors, Committee of the Exchange, minutes, 1804-1809, (M81 3/1/1)
[3] R Sedgewick, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1715 – 1754, 1st edition, (London: The Stationery Office, 1970), <https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/reynolds-francis-1773 >.
[4] Thomas McGrath, ‘Long Histories: Strangeways Hall, Manchester’, If Those Walls Could Talk, 2016 <https://ifthosewallscouldtalk.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/long-lost-histories-strangeways-hall-manchester/>.
[5] Ibid.
[6] The John Rylands Library, A Plan of Manchester and Salford (R15369), Sheet two, 29 inches to the mile, Manchester: The University of Manchester, < https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/PR-R-15369/2 >.
[7] Leyland Whittaker, ‘The Northwich Mill & Daniel Whittaker: The Cotton Twist Company of Holywell’, The Meister, (date unknown), <https://www.themeister.co.uk/hindley/whittaker_daniel.htm> and Thomas McGrath, ‘Northern Powerhouses: The Homes of the Industrial Elite, c1780 – 1875’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2021), p154, <https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/629615/1/MCGRATH%20THESIS%20FINAL.pdf >
[8] Scholes’s Manchester and Salford Directory or alphabetical list of the merchants and manufacturers, and principal inhabitants: with the numbers as affixed to their houses’, Printed by Sowler and Russell, Deansgate, (second edition), p79 < https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4/id/248974 >
[9] In line with the National Park Service ‘Language of Enslavement, I have used the term freedom seekers, rather than ‘runaway slave ‘, for more information on the language of enslavement please follow the link. <https://www.nps.gov/frdo/learn/education/language-of-enslavement.htm>.
[10] Slavery Law and Power, ‘Barbados Slave Code’, Slavery Law and Power in Early America and the British Empire, < https://slaverylawpower.org/barbados-slave-code/ >
[11] (Accessed via https://fromthepage.com/harvardlibrary/colonial-north-america-harvard-law-school-library/barbados-laws-etc-an-act-of-assembly-of-barbadoes-to-regulate-sales-at-outcry-and-the-proceedings-of-persons-executing-the-office-of-provost-marshall-general-of-the-said-island-and-their-under-officers-1763-hls-ms-1046 )Barbados. Laws, etc. An Act of Assembly of Barbadoes to regulate sales at outcry and the proceedings of persons executing the office of Provost Marshall General of the said island and their under officers, 1763. HLS MS 1046, Harvard Law School Library.
[12] Ibid.
Destinie Reynolds
Destinie is a penultimate year undergraduate student in History and Spanish at the University of Manchester. She focuses on race in modern Britain, considering how the Black community used space to navigate the post-Windrush hostile environment. She has worked on other projects including, the Windrush Scandal in its National and Commonwealth contexts with the Institute of Historical Research and our sister initiative, Global Threads, at the Manchester Science and Industry Museum.
“Working with Global Threads and Emerging Scholars has allowed me to investigate the human side to the Cottonopolis – highlighting the slave trade’s impact on enslaved communities in the Americas. Importantly, this project granted me the opportunity to reveal the diverse forms of resistance and self-determination during the plantation regime until Emancipation. I hope my research can be used to amplify the hidden voices of enslaved people to a broader audience.”