Barter beads

Beads used as barter in the slave trade on the west coast of Africa, 1780s.   Although there was no slave trading port in Dumfries and Galloway, people born here were involved in several aspects of this trade. Local merchants moved to Liverpool, where they organised slave trading voyages, often manned by captains and crew they knew from home. These beads came from Langholm, and may have belonged to James Irving, a ship’s captain in the slave trade from Liverpool.   Venetian glass beads were often used at slave markets and as one of the commodities in the slave trade.