Sugar-bowl and Box. Bristol, England (probably), glass (blown), wood, brass, gold (gilded), 10 cm diameter x 11 cm high (bowl), 13,5 cm x 27,8 cm (box). c.1820-c.1830. ©The Trustees of the British Museum.
This blue glass sugar bowl with the gilded inscription “East India Sugar not made by slaves” is accompanied by a wooden box of the period (not the original) on four gilt brass feet with a hinged lid and two lion-mask-and-ring handles containing three compartments, two formerly lined with lead for green and black tea, the central one for the bowl. The anti-slavery movement, with particular support from women, started to produce objects such as this one, to propel a boycott on the consumption of sugar as part of their campaign against slavery in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It is estimated that between three hundred and four hundred thousand Britons refused to buy sugar in support of the anti-saccharite cause, in an attempt to undermine the economic foundations of enslavement. However, it is worth noting that Bristol—where this bowl was made—was one of the largest slave ship ports of the time, alongside Liverpool and London.
This bowl suggests that people should buy sugar from “East India” instead because it was not produced by enslaved people. This revealed the selective nature of anti-slavery support in the British colonies as well as the imbalanced flow of information–and misinformation–available in Great Britain. Agricultural production in India was directly tied to extreme poverty and recurrent subsistence crises, as well as bonded labor, debt payment, and caste-based obligations. As Patricia A. Matthew states in her article Serving Tea for a Cause, “the term indentured servant was broadly used to describe a system that was in fact enslavement.”