ASSOCIATES



Gustavus Vassa was acquainted with a number of prominent individuals, and he probably knew others for whom there is no documentary evidence. He also referred to other individuals whom he knew, especially in London, about whom little if anything known beyond Vassa's reference. There were also several associations and affiliations that referred to groups, such as the Huntingdonians, the Black Poor, the Sons of Africa, and the London Corresponding Society. By highlighting the individuals Vassa knew or possibly knew, Vassa's world expands considerably, and the list increases exponentially with his book tours and the sale of subscriptions to his autobiography, ultimately generating hundreds of individuals who purchased at least one copy of his book. Vassa's associates are divided into seven categories: Family, Slavery, Abolition, Religion, Scientific, Military and Subscribers.

Select Menu
Family

Family

Gustavus Vassa was born in 1745 in the Igbo region of the Kingdom of Benin, today southern Nigeria. He was the youngest son in a family of six sons and a daughter. He was stolen with his sister and sold into slavery at the age of 11. Not much is known about his Igbo family, aside from what is included in his memoir. In 1792, he married a white woman named Suzannah Cullen. The couple had two daughters, Anne Marie Vassa and Joanna Vassa. Anne Marie passed away shortly after Vassa’s death. Joanna went on to marry a congregationalist minister named Reverend Henry Bromley. The lives of his family members are detailed in this section.

Slavery

Slavery

Olaudah Equiano was kidnapped when he was about eleven or twelve and arrived in Barbados in mid 1754. During his experience as a slave before he was able to purchase his own freedom in 1767, he was associated with a number of individuals, three of whom were his owner, a Mr. Campbell in Virginia, Captain Michael Henry Pascal, and merchant Robert King. The section also includes his two closest friends during his enslavement, Richard Baker and John Annis, and King Gustavus Vasa I of Sweden, his namesake, and finally Ambrose Lace, a leading Liverpool slave trader.

Abolition

Abolition

Gustavus Vassa became a leading member of the abolitionist movement in the middle to late 1780s, publishing the first edition of his autobiography in the spring of 1789 as Parliament opened its hearings into the slave trade. This section identifies many of the individuals with whom Vassa was associated in the struggle to end the slave trade and to expose the barbarities of slavery.

Religion

Religion

Through his slave master, Michael Henry Pascal, Gustavus Vassa was introduced to the Guerin family, relatives of Pascal who were devoutly religious. The Guerin sisters taught Vassa how to read and write, and instructed him on the principles of Christianity. Under their guidance, Vassa was baptized in 1759. Six years later, in 1765, Vassa heard the famous Calvinist Methodist preacher, George Whitefield, preach in Savannah. Whitefield and the Countess of Huntingdon’s Calvinist orientation of Methodism had a profound influence on Vassa. Throughout his life, he was affiliated with many religious figures, such as the Quakers, who were one of the first organizations to take a collective stand against the institution of slavery.

Scientific

Scientific

In 1772, Gustavus Vassa was employed by Dr. Charles Irving to help him with the operation of a sea water distillation apparatus on two ships. This was the first of many scientific connections that Vassa developed over the years. He participated in an exploration of the Arctic alongside Dr. Irving and Constantine John Phipps. He was recruited to be part of a plantation scheme in the Mosquito Shore, which introduced him to Alexander Blair, an investor who was connected to distinguished chemist James Keir and the famed steam machine inventor, James Watt. As Vassa’s narrative gained popularity, his life story peaked the interest of the so-called “father of physical anthropology,” Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. The men were mutually acquainted with the President and founder of the Royal Society, Joseph Banks and met in person. These connections, among others, are detailed in this section.

Joseph Banks
Alexander Blair
Dr. Charles Irving
James Keir
Dr. James Lind
James Watt
James Phillips
Constantine John Phipps
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Military

Military

Gustavus Vassa travelled extensively as a seaman. He fought in the Seven Years War, where he met war hero, General James Wolfe. When he eventually settled in London in the 1770s, he became deeply involved in the political sphere, landing him various government and military connections. In his fight against the institution of slavery, he wrote many letters to high ranking officials, some of which were presented in front of the House of Commons. He participated in a disastrous plantation scheme on the British-controlled Mosquito Shore, during which time he met the son of the Miskitu kings and soon to be King George II. He worked for a former government official of the short-lived Province of Senegambia, Matthias McNamara, and participated in a resettlement scheme for the black poor in the Sierra Leone peninsula. His connections with various military and government officials are listed here.

Subscribers

Subscribers

Like many other first-time authors in the 18 th century, Vassa followed a subscription-based model to secure funding for his autobiography, which he published himself. In this way, he was able to retain its copyright, a feat virtually unheard of for a black, formerly enslaved man during this period. To do so, he sold the book by subscription, convincing individuals to commit to purchasing the book prior to publication, for a discounted price. Vassa’s original list of subscribers to his first edition was 311,and by the 9th edition, it had increased to 894. This section provides a list of the subscribers for various editions of the narrative, which included many well-known abolitionists, religious figures, government officials, and others.

James Keir

(1735 – 1820)


James Keir was a man of many trades, a distinguished chemist, industrialist, author, translator, geologist, metallurgist, and military captain, although he is best remembered for having invented modern-day soap and for revolutionizing the Stourbridge Glass Industry and the Soho Company. He was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland on September 29, 1735 to a family of 18. His parents, John Keir and Magdaline Lind, came from families of considerable wealth and political influence. He went to a public high school in Edinburgh from 1742 to 1748, although finished his schooling privately. He took classes in medicine and chemistry at the University of Edinburgh until 1757, at which time he dropped out to join the West Indies militia. He served in the 61st foot alongside another Scotsman, Alexander Blair, whom he later partnered with in 1778 to create Tipton Chemical Works, a soap manufacturer that produced nitric and hydrochloric acids, red and white lead, and alkali, among other chemicals. Blair was a co-investor in Dr. Charles Irving’s scheme of 1776, which sought to establish a plantation to produce castor oil and cotton on the British-controlled Mosquito Shore, south of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the Rio Grande de Matagalpa. Blair’s interest in castor oil likely stemmed from its use in the manufacturing of soap. Blair and Irving hired Gustavus Vassa as the overseer of the Mosquito Shore project, hoping that his fluency in Igbo would help them recruit West African captives to work on the plantation. At the time, Vassa thought that slavery could be reformed and apparently believed that Irving’s plantation could provide enslaved Africans with ameliorated conditions and the opportunity to achieve emancipation. However, Vassa became disillusioned and abandoned the project in June of 1776. It is unknown if Keir and Vassa ever met.

In 1766, eager for intellectual stimulation, Keir began translating Pierre-Joseph Macquer’s Dictionnarie de Chymie. He published the first English edition, Dictionary of Chemistry, in 1771 and the second edition in 1777. He served in the army until 1768, at which time he resigned his commission as a captain to pursue a career in chemistry and philosophy.

In the early 1770s, he moved to the West Midlands to seek out industrial opportunities. During this time, his childhood friend, Erasmus Darwin, a physician at Litchfield, introduced him to the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a dinner club and informal learning society, whose members included prominent industrialists and intellectuals, such as Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and Josiah Wedgwood. Keir was an ambitious businessman and in 1770 partnered with his cousin to produce metal ship parts for the British Navy, which saw him board a ship bound for Antigua. On October 10, 1771, he married Susanna Harvey with whom he had two children, a son who died as a young boy and a daughter named Amelia. In 1772, he took over operations of Holloway End Glasshouse in Amblecote, with the help of two other aspiring industrialists, Samuel Skey and ‘old’ John Taylor. The glass manufactory supplied a variety of products including window glass, chemical wares, decanters, and wine glasses. The nature of this business allowed him to make a number of observations concerning the crystallization of glass, which he published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions in 1776 and in an article titled, Observations on the Crystallization of Glass. While working at the glasshouse, he experimented with the production of alkali, a desirable commodity used for bleaching, dyeing, and soap making. His discovery that the waste sulphates of potash and soda could be converted into alkali led to another business venture in 1778, Tipton Chemical Works, with his army friend, Alexander Blair. The manufactory was located along the Birmingham Canal at the former site of Bloomsmithy Mill, in an area later referred to as Black Country due to the heavy pollution from the concentration of factories and coal mines in the region. The location was advantageous due to the close proximity of inexpensive fuel sources and the convenience of the canal. Tipton Chemical Works quickly became Keir’s greatest accomplishment, producing an estimated 1 million pounds of soap a year, a scale of operations in the late 18th century exceeded only by the Soho Company.

From 1778 to 1780, Keir assumed a management and consultant role at the Soho Company while Boulton and Watt were away perfecting their steam engine business. Keir’s time at the Soho Company was short-lived, he resigned from his position in 1781, citing gross abuses in the company’s management. He partnered with Boulton on two different initiatives, the development of a letter-copying press for which he became a quarter-partner and the creation of a golden-coloured metallic alloy that could be forged when hot or cold. For a short period of time, the Navy utilized the compound metal for ship bolts, nails, and sheathing, but ultimately chose not to use it any further. Keir attempted to expand the market for the compound by rebranding it as Eldorado-metal. The rebranding was successful, and the alloy came to be used to make fanlights, sash windows, and skylights.

His innovations in chemistry and engineering allowed him to become a fellow of the Royal Society in 1785, as well as a member of the Society of Antiquaries and the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Keir was also active in the political sphere and sympathized with the French and American revolutions. In 1790, he published An Essay on the Martial Character of Nations and in 1803 wrote Reflexions on the Invasion of Great-Britain by the French Armies. In 1794, Keir and Blair purchased the Tividale Colliery, a coalmine just southeast of their factory, which supplied fuel for the soap manufactory and provided Keir with a variety of geological specimens to study. In 1810 he published the article, Mineralogy of the South-West Part of Staffordshire.

Keir remained involved with Tipton Chemical Works up until 1811, at which time he relinquished control to Blair. Unbeknownst to Keir, Blair had apparently embezzled thousands of pounds from Tipton Chemical Works over the years to pay off his gambling debts, nearly destroying the company in the process. On June 3, 1815, the partnership of Blair and his sons dissolved, and Tipton ceased to be associated with their names. In his final years, Keir suffered from rheumatism, his main joy coming from his interest in mineralogical and geological studies as well as his growing number of grandchildren. He passed away on October 11, 1820 at the age of 85 and was buried at All Saints Church in West Bromwich. Unfortunately, fires at his Hill Top house in 1807 and at Abberley Hall in 1845 destroyed many of his letters and manuscripts.

RELATED FILES AND IMAGES

No data found.

REFERENCES

Duffill, Mark. “Report on Alexander Blair and James Keir,” unpublished report (n.d.).

Duffill, Mark. “Vassa Report No. 6,” unpublished report, September 27, 2008.

Schranz, Kristen M. “James Keir (1735-1820): A Renaissance Man of the Industrial Revolution,” in Jenny Uglow, ed., In the Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730-1810 (London: Faber & Faber, 2002).

Smith, Barbara M. D. and J. L. Moilliet. “James Keir of the Lunar Society,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 22:1 (1967), 144-154.

Sullivan, Janet C. “Paying the Price for Industrialization: The Experience of a Black Country Town, Oldbury, in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” PhD Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2014.



This webpage was last updated on 2020-06-12 by Carly Downs

James

Portrait by L. de Longastre (n.d.), Library of Birmingham.