On July 12th 1800, William Pit the Younger the Prime Minister came east down the Thames to visit the Isle of Dogs. He performed a foundation stone laying ceremony for the East India Dock, the first of many more to be build, with which Robert Milligan the Jamaican slave owner was involved. This web site has been set up as forum to examine this event and it's context; what it meant as regards development of capitalism especially development of slavery.
On July 12th 2000, Tony Blair was expected to reenact this, but Tony pulled out, in an event organised by Canary Wharf plc. in conjunction with Tower Hamlets council. They are inviting people to join in with their celebration; but we felt a discussion should first take place on whether a celebration is suitable and what reaction should be to this bicentenary.
On Wednesday 12th July Ken Livingstone opened the new replica of the gate at the East India Dock. He made an apology for mistreatment of dockers but failed to make a similar apology for the enslaved Africans which were forced to help make London the largest port in the world.
The organisers have reacted to concerns expressed here and elsewhere, but it remains to be seen how this reaction will develop in practical terms such as wording on plaque on the new gate. If you want to be have you say on what the plague will say then get in touch.
Although it is desirable to remember the black holocaust that slavery was and educate others about it in itself; declaring opposition to it's denial is part of resistance in here and now to the bosses as they try to strengthen control over us by drawing us into their history and their interests. The Canary Wharf tower next to the East India Quay is home to many newspapers that serve to shape perceptions of our present day circumstances as well as tell us some of what is going on.
Letter to Canary Wharf plc. concerning plans for bicentenary
Extracts from Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams
1606 and all that (published in Race and Class)
Here are a few relevant articles taken from The Islander newspaper:
Contributions that would be useful to add to this web site are invited. Please send them by e-mail to web@j12.org . If there is demand we will set up a form based forum, but for now please do send you comments and we may manually add them to site if you wish.
For background on the modern development of Canary Wharf check out:
Canary Wharf Creators
If you were looking for pages concerning other subjects on the j12 website then email us for help locating them.