Model of a man selling textiles, Brazil

One of four models to mark the freeing of his slaves by Ralph Henry Samuel, long before emancipation in Brazil (1888).This fragile model figure illustrates how industrial wealth in the North West depended to a large extent on raw materials and slave labour from across the Atlantic. The man's clothes, his occupation, and his journey from Brazil to Manchester all show how intertwined were the histories of the Americas and the UK. This is one of four models once owned by a Liverpool textile merchant, Ralph Henry Samuel. They depict typical sorts of work connected to his cotton plantation in Rio and they may well have been made to mark the abolition of slavery in the British territories in the 1830s (emancipation came to Brazil later, in 1888). This peddler, perhaps a freed slave, carries a box of textiles. His wares would have come from around the world, including Manchester-made cottons. The model itself is also made from a combination of these internationally-traded cloths, connecting this figure even further with the history of textiles.

One of four models to mark the freeing of his slaves by Ralph Henry Samuel, long before emancipation in Brazil (1888).