It seems that a key piece of British history has been ‘whitewashed’ over the years. No surprises there.
The revolutionary process of rendering scrap metal into valuable bar iron, which helped turn Britain into an economic superpower, has long been wrongly attributed to financier turned ironmaster Henry Cort, who later patented the process.
A new study claims that it was in fact Black metallurgists in Jamaica who came up with the metallurgy process for their own reasons.
The iron method which led to the industrial revolution
Historically, innovations have been credited to white practitioners and institutions in Northern Europe and North America.
British financier turned ironmaster Henry Cort, between 1783 and 1784 came to be celebrated as one of the most important innovators in the making of the modern world. But Cort took credit for the 76 Black metallurgists who developed the process. Many of these metalworkers, working at an ironworks near Morant Bay, were enslaved and trafficked from Africa.
Under British colonialism, industries, military bases, and maritime networks in Jamaica relied on the skill of Black metallurgists to remanufacture European ballast and scrap, noted the study.
The main author of the study, Jenny Bulstrode, went over oral histories and material culture with archives, newspapers, and published works. She found that working iron was a means of expression against the onslaught of Europe’s human trade. It expressed forging fighting alliances between West and Central African societies, healing sickness, and expressing grief.
The 76 Black metallurgists ran a foundry named after a white enslaver, John Reeder. Some of the metallurgists have been named in the study – Devonshire, Mingo, Mingo’s son Friday, Captain Jack, Matt, George, Jemmy, Jackson, Will, Bob, Guy, Kofi, and Kwasi.
The process of bundling together iron blades was also a reflection of how sugar cane in Jamaica was bundled like iron.
Eventually, a couple of events led to John Reeder’s foundry being the talk of the island. Henry Cort at the time ran a failing ironworks. He heard about the foundry through a cousin. Too great a threat to British colonial rule, the foundry was shut and razed to the ground. Cort, an opportunist, acquired the machinery and shipped it to Portsmouth, where he patented the innovation.
“The principal ambition of this paper has been to engage with the practices and purposes of some of those Black metallurgists on their own terms,” concluded Bulstrode in her paper.
The study was published in the journal History and Technology on June 21, 2023.
Study abstract:
Metallurgy is the art and science of working metals, separating them from other substances, and removing impurities. This paper is concerned with the Black metallurgists on whose art and science the intensive industries; military bases; and maritime networks of British enslaver colonialism in eighteenth-century Jamaica depended.
To engage with these metallurgists on their own terms, the paper brings together oral histories and material culture with archives, newspapers, and published works. By focusing on the practices and priorities of Jamaica’s Black metallurgists, the significance and reach of their work begins to be uncovered.
Between 1783 and 1784 financier turned ironmaster, Henry Cort, patented a process of rendering scrap metal into valuable bar iron. For this ‘discovery’, economic and industrial histories have lauded him as one of the revolutionary makers of the modern world. This paper shows how the myth of Henry Cort must be revised with the practices and purposes of Black metallurgists in Jamaica, who developed one of the most important innovations of the industrial revolution for their own reasons.
SOURCE: interestingengineering.com