Abell
On 1st October in 1717, ‘Abell a blackmoor belonging to Mr Rock’ was buried at Our Lady and St Nicholas Church, that still stands today on the Liverpool waterfront. His ‘owner’ was probably Samuel Rock, one of the town’s early slave merchants. Over the years, Abell’s final resting place would see the interment of many of Liverpool’s most prolific slave traders, including Bryan Blundell, founder of the Bluecoat School. The enslaved and the enslavers lie side by side in Liverpool’s most historic graveyard.
The fallacy that slaves did not live in Liverpool continues to be a trope that some local historians promote, but evidence from the city’s primary sources prove otherwise. Parish records and newspapers clearly show that enslaved people were bought, sold, lived, died and ran away in Liverpool.
