In addition to thinking about how it would be possible to use fugitive advertisements to add the history of slave resistance to an account of enslaving activity in Britain, we discussed the connections and comparisons possible to similar objects in the Americas and West Africa which reveal the similarities and differences in systems of enslavement.
The use of stocks in West Africa to hobble and restrain runaways: https://liberianhistory.org/items/browse?type=6&tag=Physical+restraints
The roughly-hewn collar of an American slave plantation: https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2011.155.285abc?destination=explore/collection/search%3Fedan_q%3Dshackle%26edan_local%3D1%26op%3DSearch
Leg irons
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=97
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=618
Steel collars
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=708
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=138
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=569
Bringing these objects together reveals the ubiquity of slave resistance, the efforts enslavers went to restrain and control people struggling to control their own mobility and the different economic and material conditions of slavery across the three continents.
The discussion also raised the contemporary legacies and resonances of shackles such as these. The National Museum of African American History and Culture holds a pair of handcuffs, that were used to restrain Professor Henry Louis Gates when he was arrested outside his own home: https://nmaahc.si.edu/object/nmaahc_2010.11?destination=explore/collection/search%3Fedan_q%3Dhandcuffs%26edan_local%3D1%26op%3DSearch Those handcuffs are etched with the name of the arresting officer who owned them, just as the shackle was engraved with the name of its owner. The connection between enslaved fugitivity and contemporary policing was also highlighted by the role played by John Fielding (the magistrate who establised London's first police force, the Bow Street Runners) in the forcible capture and return of people who had escaped from slavery in 18t century London. 24 advertisements in the Runaway Slaves in Britain database mention him by name as the person to whom members of the public should return a recaptive.
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=262
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=266
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=269
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=412
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=413
https://runaways.gla.ac.uk/database/display/?rid=271
Deepening the link between the NMAAHC's handcuffs and the shackle is the existence of a similar object, held in the collections of Bristol Museums: http://museums.bristol.gov.uk/details.php?irn=137031 Both were made by the Birmingham firm HIATT.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2007/03/03/did_birmingham_profit_feature.shtml