TRADE
2020
(Commissioned by The Rooms, St. John’s, Newfoundland)
68” high x 61” wide (172cm high x 160 cm wide)
This sugar tile mural was created for an exhibition titled “What Carries Us; Newfoundland and Labrador in the Black Atlantic”. The show, curated by Bushra Junaid, is made up of works by 4 contemporary artists (Sonia Boyce, Sandra Brewster, Shelley Miller, Camille Turner). The information about this show states: “This exhibition brings a new perspective to Newfoundland and Labrador's centuries-old trade in salt, cod, molasses, rum and other commodities. Though this history is now forgotten, Newfoundland and Labrador played a significant role in the triangular trade system that moved enslaved people and goods between North and South America, Africa and the Caribbean. Drawing on the works of contemporary artists, The Rooms collection and archival sources, guest curator Bushra Junaid makes this lost history visible. She explores the cultural, culinary and artistic legacies of these ongoing connections between island regions.”
Cod was a big reason that the British set up their colonies in Newfoundland. So while cod was being fished to feed England, some was sold to European markets. But the European market was picky so the cod that wasn’t filleted well, or was too small, or just not up to code, was essentially waste. This is where the British saw an opportunity.
Most of the British colonies in the Caribbean were used to grow commodity crops, like sugarcane and tobacco, using slave labour. There was a food shortage for slaves, since all the available land in the islands was used to crow these commodity crops. The British saw an opportunity to use this waste cod as a currency to trade for salt, molasses and rum, among other goods. As ships carried the salt cod south, packed tight in wooden barrels, they would also pick up slaves on route, before landing in the British West Indies. This is essentially how Newfoundland and Labrador fit into the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
A few suggested books, which were part of Camille Turner’s installation in this exhibition include: “Canada’s Forgotten Slaves” by Marcel Trudel and Micheline d’Allaire; “North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in he Maritimes” by Harvey Amani Whitfield; “Black Slavery in the Maritimes” by Harvey Amani Whitfield. Also, included as suggested reading by the curator Bushra Junaid, “The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness” by Paul Gilroy.
