A Rhizomic Persuasion
Golden Shovel based on a quote from Elizabeth Heyrick’s ‘Immediate, Not Gradual Abolition: or an Inquiry into the Shortest, Safest and Most Effectual means of getting rid of West Indian Slavery’
In Leicester market watch what
people stop to buy, what they can
afford. A mother controls the
kitchen, leads on abstinence
from harm, makes the choice of
East or West for groceries, guides a
cook. It would take just a few
families, neighbours, individuals
to think and respond positively. Or
do we target men? How would a
campaign work? Could a few
influence enough families,
enough households, to do
a swap? To work towards
abolition? To see the
end goal as an accomplishment
worth making a change of
East for West Indian sugar, so
profits go to free labour, a vast
evil undone. Should an
owner profit from an object,
that a slave is reduced to? It
is an obligation, anyone can
fulfil, something everyone can do,
a small act ripples into wonders.
A lone star doesn’t light much. Great
numbers of them create a galaxy of effects.
Likewise one family’s actions often
stretch to other households, result
in grocers, confectioners swapping from
West to East. A simple, small
change, a movement’s beginnings.