Slave sculpture

Very early on Saturday morning I decided to travel into London. It has been 4.5 months since I was last in town. Normally I would go into London two or three times a week. As you can see the train was almost empty, probably because it was just after 7am. When I left the station the only people I saw were security guards, builders and a few homeless people. During the Covid crisis, the homeless were found places to stay in hostels or hotels but some people can't cope being trapped inside four walls. I did chat to one man who said he was happier living outside on the streets. 

My plan was to walk to Whitechapel, the next underground station I wanted to visit. This meant a walk through the City of London, the financial district, which is always quiet on a Saturday anyway. I walked through Fen Court which I hadn't noticed before. Fen Court is the site of a churchyard ' St  Gabriel's of Fenchurch Street'. In the centre was a sculpture that I found intriguing. It is called 'Gilt of Cain' by Michael Visocchi and Lemn Sissay. It was unveiled by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2008. The sculpture commemorates the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, which began the process of the emancipation of slaves throughout the British Empire.

The collaboration of the sculptor and the poet (I think) were trying to link history with the present day as there is a connection between the abolitionist movement and the rector of St Mary Woolnoth.  John Newton,, who was the rector from 1780 to 1807 was a slave trader who became a preacher and abolitionist,  working alongside William Wilberforce.

The sculpture is composed of granite columns surrounding a podium which looks like a church pulpit or that of a slave auctioneer's stand. The columns surround the podium like a congregation. Extracts from Lemn Sissay's poem 'The gilt of Cain' are engraved on the columns. The poem cleverly intertwines the modern language of the stock exchange with that of the Old Testament

The Gilt of Cain
By Lemn Sissay, 2007

Here is the ask price on the closed position,
history is no inherent acquisition
for here the Technical Correction upon the act,
a merger of truth and in actual fact
on the spot, on the money – the spread.
The dealer lied when the dealer said
the bull was charging the bear was dead,
the market must calculate per capita, not head.

And great traders acting in concert, arms rise
as the actuals frought on the sea of franchise
thrown overboard into the exchange to drown
in distressed brokers disconsolate frown.
In Accounting liquidity is a mounting morbidity
but raising the arms with such rigid rapidity…
Oh the reaping the raping rapacious fluidity.
the violence the vicious and vexed volatility.

The roaring trade floor rises above crashing waves:
the traders buy ships, beneath the slaves.
Sway machete back, sway machete again
cut back the Sugar Rush, Cain.
The whipsaw it’s all and the whip saw it all
The rising market and the cargo fall
Who’ll enter “Jerusalem” make the margin call for Abel?
Who will kick over the stall and turn the table?

Cain gathers cane as gilt-gift to his land
But whose sword of truth shall not sleep in hand?
Who shall unlock the stocks and share?
Break the bond the bind unbound - lay bare
The Truth. Cash flow runs deep but spirit deeper
You ask Am I my brothers keeper?
I answer by nature by spirit by rightful laws
My name, my brother, Wilberforce.

This project was initiated by Black British Heritage and the Parish of St Mary Woolnoth and was commissioned by the City of London Corporation in partnership with the British Land Company.