How Liverpool Became Embroiled in the US Civil War
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- Опубліковано 25 лют 2023
- Liverpool's history as a large port city gave it strong ties to the young United States. One of the founding fathers of the US and a signer of the Declaration of Independence was scouser John Morris. And the first ever US Consulate was opened on Paradise Street, just a short walk from Liverpool Docks.
But in 1860, with the cessation of southern states from the Union and the inevitable breakout of all-out civil war, Liverpool suddenly found itself as an outpost for the Confederate forces - a vital lifeline to a cause that was immoral and reprehensible. The city suddenly became filled with Confederate money, blockade runners, and (of course) ships. So how exactly did this unfold? And how did it affect the ordinary working people of Liverpool, most of whom didn't support slavery?
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Most interesting. TFP. i) We residents of Melbourne are familiar with CSS Shenandoah, which called into Port Phillip for maintenance, victualing and new crew in January 1865, before sailing to the north Pacific to harass the Union fishing fleet. ii) It is often forgotten that the populace of the British Isles was also subjected to slavery. Barbary corsairs engaged in the white slave trade involving huge numbers of Europeans for centuries, raiding coastal communities and fishing fleets around south-west England and Ireland until suppressed following the French conquest of Algeria in 1830.
Also 19 Abercromby Square Liverpool which was know as Jefferson Davis's European 'White House'.
Great Video, just one small correction, the vast majority of the slaves did not go to the US but to Brazil and the Caribbean. But great video, keep it up 😉
As I am from/living in Liverpool, thanks for the comprehensive account of our links with the American Civil War. Massive respect to you on this and all your other video's ... I like your outlook on Northern Industrial history and other topics you have raised ... your the type of fella I could happily have a "Bevvy" with! all the best.
Haha thanks David. I'm glad you enjoy the videos
My Romano/British ancestry centers around NW England. Two of my great-great-uncles fought in the Civil War. I live in Maryland, a slave holding Union state. After watching 11 hrs., of the Ken Burnes Civil War series I challenged a college level exam on the subject. Nice to add another piece to the puzzle. Very much enjoyed.
That's fantastic Marvin. The links between the NW England and the NE States are fascinating!
This vid does not mention the *Laird Rams.* These were two ships made by Lairds of Birkenhead for the Confederates. The most advanced iron-clad with rotating turret ships in the world, which would have devastated the Northern Yankee fleet. A similar ship built by Lairds for the Peruvian navy devastated a squadron of British ships in the Pacific, such was their power
Abraham Lincoln was threatening to declare war on Britain if Lairds delivered the ships. Liverpool cared nothing of what London said doing what it wanted to do. The Royal Navy seized the ships taking them into the Royal Navy.
Liverpool STILL IS the major port on the UK West coast.
History is amazing, with all its, warts, bruises, bumps, highs and lows, it is there for us to see and learn from.
It was the working people of Manchester and the Lancashire cotton districts who suffered during the ‘cotton famine’ as a result of boycotting American cotton who inspired Lincoln’s letter. I imagine that Liverpool workers continued to earn. Manchester used Indian raw cotton and I don’t think the civil war was the factor that ended the trade as there were large numbers of mills up to the early sixties
Love the videos mate please keep them coming, been putting friends onto these I reckon Bee Here Now needs to get a BBC 4 slot
Thanks Ollie. My wife and I have just sat and watched this video absolutely fascinated. A slice of history we had no idea about. Thank you very much for the research and the presentation. Look forward to the next one.
Thanks mate, glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent video about a sensitive subject which needs to be addressed. Ironically, I was born in Liverpool and now live outside of Atlanta. So I have heard only sanitized versions of on both sides of the Atlantic. You really tied things together very well concerning the cotton trade and how it was so integral to the slave trade. You should be a teacher - you just have the knack.
Thanks very much, very kind of you!
Crikey, Ollie, I hadn't any knowledge of any connection between Liverpool and the States to with the Declaration. This video is so absorbing, and to see the buildings in Liverpool involved with all that history is totally amazing. Very well presented, thank you.
Brilliant as usual Ollie. You tell a story so well, and matched with your production skills makes for a great experience for folk like me every time. I remember growing up there was a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Platt Fields. I believe it has been moved to somewhere in the city centre these days. You're bang on about the wealthy leading the workers into dark places...it's happening again as we speak. All the best!
Cheers Mike. Yes the Lincoln statue is near the town hall, in the new peace gardens. Glad you liked the video 😊
Excellent as always
Brilliant as always 👍
Well done young Sir.
Take care with your hands. Rather obtrusive. You're not alone. Enjoy your posts. Take me where I have never been.
Excellent content,covered so much in such a short time.
It is easy to paint the Confederacy with broad strokes as uniquely evil. No one wants to connect themselves to their ancestors' shame. But as you demonstrated, the past was not a neat dichotomy. It was complicated, which gives us hope that while we, too, wrestle with righteousness in our day, we are not alone.
Thank you!
Awesome stuff on how Liverpool was back way back before Liverpool became how Liverpool is today. I still would like to go to Liverpool.
There are US civil war tours.
Another great vid Ollie and so interesting - didn't know about these links - thanks and all the best!
Thank you!
A fascinating and interesting video!👏
Brilliant👍
Top video. 👍
I was waiting for you to cover this glorious story, I started one myself, you nailed it for me anyway 😎
Oh nice! Glad you enjoyed it
It does make me proud of my town of Bolton that we boycotted American cotton during the war. There was a former enslaved man who did lectures in the town on the Horrors of slavery and there is a bust of his head in Westhoughton I believe.
Picking cotton is a favorite American past time
I have to say the museum of slavery is fascinating and great, even when I was a child it was engaging and eye opening.
Ollie, great to have another Bee Here Now video to enjoy. I learned much about this in school, I do live in America, but its great the hear the story from a UK point of view. Slavery is the sin of the world and it's sad to see its still alive and kicking. To Me, America would be a better place is Lincoln wasn't assassinated, his plan was to help the south rebuild and prosper without the need of slavery. But with Lincoln's assassination it took over 100 years for civil rights to finally take hold. America learned from the civil war and is better for it, but now again were in quite a mess, our Freedoms are under attack, but we'll pull through again and learn and be a better place for it. Thanks to Ollie for another outstanding historical watch.....
Thank you Mike! I agree with you totally. It's interesting to imagine how the US would have turned out if Lincoln had carried on for another term.
@@BeeHereNowuk Always enjoy American history from another point of view.... Thanks
Another fantastic video Ollie ❤️
Great video mate👏🏼
This is fascinating!
Very watchable and entertaining... plus I learned some things. Love the crazy new grinning logo thing!
Glad you liked it!
I love the outtakes
Top video Bee Here Now.
Brilliant and informative as always. Well done 👏 ✔️ 👍 👌 😀 🙌
Thank you! Cheers!
As always a great video!
I appreciate that thank you!
Absolutely fascinating. I really hope you that you are a history teacher in real life?! Thanks Ollie!
Thanks Ian! Glad you found it fascinating
oh nice, it has been a while since your lat video!
Fascinating as always. I was really struggling to hear this one, it sounded muffled, like you used a dead mic? although the out-takes at the end sounded fine.
Thanks for the feedback. Yes I think my mic is too old now 😬
@@BeeHereNowuk - The out-takes are fine, so just wondering if you used a processer on the audio? Like a click remover? Some of them can be very heavy handed.
Ollie, there were strikes and protests against slavery by mill workers in Rochdale, Ashton and in Stalybridge.
Lincoln wrote an open letter to Manchester, the words are on his statue in town.
Sure, you know the stories already though
Small suggestion: try using the same microphone for the whole video and record in the same room.
But I'm really happy about a new video :)
Keep up the great work!
As for owning up to your past, I'm happy that I've of my home countries finally talks about its past in southern Africa.
Superb that....
Thanks a lot 😊
An excellent video. So there's no truth to the rumour that the wife of a former UK Prime Minister (who shall remain nameless) is related to Lincoln's assassin? Oh well, another urban myth bites the dust. A few years ago, I spent some time near to the centre of Mexico City, where its most august department store goes by the name of Liverpool. (Nowadays there's a chain of such stores). Being a native of the Wirral, I decided to have lunch there and asked the waiter how the store came to be be called Liverpool. After some consultation among the staff, the answer I got was that the store originally sold cotton fabrics, which were exported from Lancashire via - you guessed it - Liverpool.
Liverpool (the store) first opened in 1850, a mere two years after the ending of the Mexican-American War, which saw the former Spanish colony lose vast tracts of territory to the US. I suspect that the dynamics of the US Civil War involved rather more than is generally recognised in the English speaking world. To his credit, Abe Lincoln was as vehemently opposed to the land grab from Mexico as he was to slavery.
That's fascinating! Yes there seem to be so many links from the civil war to the rest of the world, especially Britain. I'll have to pop to that store in Mexico city and do a video on it one day 😂
fascinating
What would you rather bee...or a wasp?
More out-takes! 🙂
Haha okay
The best raw cotton came from Egypt but i bet they used slave labour there.
Probably
The New England industrial revolution depended on southern cotton.
"most slaves" to America. Of total Transatlantic trade, 3.5 % transported to NA English colonies.
Read The Forgotten Slave Trade
I doubt any of us Liverpudlians would take offence at your video; we’re well aware of the city’s part in the slave trade.
Our part in the American Civil War has always interested me… say what you like about Liverpool - were never dull. 🙂
‘The magic of Liverpool is that it isn’t England’ - Margaret Simey.
Thank you, and a great quote!
I didn't realize for a while that Cottonopolis depended so much on US cotton import. Once US was forced to build local textile industry because of the civil war effects, then UK textile industry went on decline.
That's not true the cotton industry went into decline in the 1900s in the UK with competition from India and the great depression. Manchester didn't suffer as much from the decline as it had diversified it's industry decades earlier and hadn't been the largest cotton producer for decades, different cotton towns further north such as Bolton, Burnley and Blackburn held the title at different points.
hate to say 'stay in your lane' but...
Please no more slavery references 🤮
It needs to be put out there. The British Empire wasn’t as perfect as we are taught in school. Germany has come to terms with its past but we still want the world to be pink on a map!
Don’t watch it then
@@ianhalsall-fox the british empire was perfect and im not ashamed of its involvement in slavery it is what it is, africans and arabs and indians have much more to be ashamed of than we do we didn't enslave our own