Monica Cousins, Contributor

The grave of Sambo, a slave from the West Indies, at Sunderland Point, near Lancaster, England. - Contributed

There was at least one dissenting voice at the service attended by the Queen to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery at Westminster Abbey in London last month. Toyin Agbetu stood up towards the end of the service and expressed his disfavour that there had been no apology either by the Queen or the Church. He was forcibly removed!

But if Toyin had done his homework, he might have received insight into the fact that 'Our gracious Lady, Queen Elizabeth' herself would have been sympathetic towards the struggles of her black subjects. Toyin would have discovered that it was during the reign of George III that royal assent was given, and Wilberforce's Bill of abolition of the slave trade was signed into law. He would have also discovered that Queen Charlotte, who was the wife of King George III (1738-1820), and grandmother of Queen Victoria, is said to have directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese Royal House.

Further discoveries would have led the protester to a link with the artist Sir Allan Ramsay, who it is said was responsible for most portraits of Queen Charlotte, a German princess, which showed her distinct Negroid features. Sir Allan Ramsey, an anti-slavery intellectual of his day, married the niece of Lord Mansfield, the English judge (and the uncle of Sir John Lindsey, a British navy captain whose daughter Dido Elizabeth Lindsey was also the daughter of an enslaved woman the captain met while in the Caribbean) whose decision in 1772 started a series of rulings that eventually resulted in the abolition of slavery 25 years later.

Lessons from protest

All these events may have constituted an apology by the royal family of the day, but Toyin would not buy into that. So he made his protest, and got sympathy from the likes of Jamaican-born Reverend Joel Edwards of the Evangelical Alliance, who said, "The Church of England needs to learn lessons from the protest", and Rev. Katie Kirby of the African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance who said, "Many black Christians sympathised with his views, if not the way they were expressed."

But sympathy, if not apology, towards the 'bitter pill' of slavery that black people have had to swallow, has been expressed in various ways by groups and individuals, and much has gone unnoticed.

On a bleak promontory known as Sunderland Point, that stretches across the Lune estuary, a part of the infamous Morecambe Bay, near the city of Lancaster in deepest Lancashire, is 'Sambo's Grave'. This name is said to have been chosen because the man was black and no one knew his proper name, but since about 1736, 'Sambo' has laid buried in this isolated spot. This lonely grave of a 'A faithful Negro who attended his master from the West Indies ... ' must be one of the most visited of any unknown slave's. It is always well tended and has been more of a shrine for over 200 years.

'European' disease

It is believed that the young African slave boy was first taken to Jamaica and became the cabin boy of a captain of one of the slave ships that traded between Jamaica and the port of Lancaster, then the fourth-largest trading port behind London, Liverpool and Bristol. One story is that the young boy was afflicted with a 'European' disease for which he had no immunity (which would imply he froze to death). It is said that because Sambo was black he was not a Christian and, therefore, could not be buried on consecrated ground, so his master buried him behind the inn (which no longer exists). For many years the grave laid unmarked, but in 1796, a retired schoolmaster, one Rev. Watson (also a priest in the church), raised money for the memorial which reads:

"Here lies poor Sambo, a faithfull negro who

(attending his master from the west indies)

Died on his arrival at Sunderland ....

"Full sixty years the angry winter's wave

Has thundering dashed this bleak and barren shore

Since Sambo's head laid in this lonely grave

Lies still and ne'er will hear their turmoil more

Full many a sandbird chirps upon the sod

And many a moonlight elfin round him trips

Full many a moonlight sunbeam warms the clod

And many a teeming cloud upon him drips

But still he sleeps - till the awakening sounds

Of the archangel trump new life impart

Then the great judge his approbation founds

Not on man's colour but his worth of heart"

Instead of going to church on Good Friday, I visited Sambo's grave to pay respects on behalf of all the descendants of slavery, both 'Negroes and Whites'. I saw for myself how well-kept the site was. I laid fresh flowers from my garden amid the other tributes said to be left by local children over the years, a very small replica of a fighter bomber placed atop the little wooden cross, painted stones, stuffed toys, etc., and daffodils planted around the head of the grave. It was a poignant reminder of the true meaning of Good Friday, when another innocent life was sacrificed on a wooden cross.

Since 1796, countless footsteps have made the treacherous tidal crossing (reminiscent of the Middle Passage on an ever so tiny scale) to Sunderland Point to visit the grave of one 'unknown soldier'. Maybe some have gone quietly to apologise (there was a steady stream of persons coming and going), maybe others have gone to mock, as this addendum to the epitaph on Sambo's grave suggests ("Thoughtless and irreverent people having damaged and defaced the plate, this replica was affixed ... respect this lonely grave").

Others (like me) may have gone to quietly remember the struggles that millions of our ancestors endured before freedom of sorts was gained. But whatever the reason, Sambo will never be forgotten, as the 'pilgrims' who brave this dangerous tidal stretch of waterway year in, year out will attest to, and as the epitaph by Rev. Watson soliloquised. Sometimes there needs to be a more tangible way of expression, but sometimes it can be even more effective to let 'actions speak louder than words'.