Catalogue Number
NMLH.2023.77.4
Object Name
Poster
Title
Sugar was introduced to the West Indies in 1640
Date
1972-1982
Description
The Poster Collective was a collective formed in 1971 at the Slade School of Art,  a group formed to initially produce posters in response to the miners strike and on the wars in both Vietnam and Ireland. It was formed on the basis of developing a coherent visual style, which addressed the political issues of the time. This included the armed struggles against colonialism in Africa, the struggle of women for equal rights and the continuing struggle against racism. The collective was active in the 70's and 80's, producing posters on a wide range of issues, including for educational purposes. The group was not-for-profit and used a variety of hand-printing techniques to create their posters. This poster is part of a set, "Whose World is the World?", comprising of twelve that were created for schools. The set depicts a different view of history and puts forward ways of understanding the basis for the development of Western economic power over the last 400 years. It was produced in 1979
and is the fourth of the set. This is a large poster with a green background, text and images. The text on the poster says, "Sugar was introduced to the West Indies in 1640. Slaves were forced to work on plantations to grow tobacco, sugar and cotton. The profit from the work of slaves was huge (between £200 million and £300 million). This was used to build new factories in England. There was 73 slave revolts in the 1700's... Slave resistance and cheaper suagr from other countries led to the end of slavery in the British West Indies in 1834. The British government paid the owners millions of pounds to give up their slave labour. This money was used to buy new plantations in India and to bring Indian workers from India to the West Indies. The slaves recieved nothing." There is a photograph of three young Black children, with a speech bubble that has text inside. This reads, "the slaves got their freedom but the owners kept the land and the wealth. Our people got nothing." Other images
on the poster include a large picture of a man holding a shovel. Behind him there are images of people fighting; this illustrates enslaved peoples revolting. The top right of the poster shows images of enslaved people being forced to work on a plantation, other image of torture devices being used on a Black man, and the bottom image shows a painting of wealthy white people wearing wigs, with the text, "The governer of the Bahamas, 1708." This poster was printed by Gaffyne & Brown Ltd. and says it was "designed by the poster film collective and distributed by the institute of race relations. Some of the imagery on this poster is very violent and disturbing.
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