Lilian Seenoi-Barr, Director of Programmes, North West Migrants Forum. (Photo: Jim McCafferty Photography)
The committee approved a motion that the council apply to the Ulster History Circle for a blue plaque in honour of Hercules Mulligan who was born in Coleraine but emigrated with his family to north America in 1746. A spy during the American Revolutionary War Mulligan was a founding father of the New York Manumission Society, an early American organisation founded to promote the abolition of slavery.
However NWMF, citing evidence from the US Federal Census, have shown that Mulligan was still a slave-owner in 1790.
“We are disappointed and appalled by this decision to honour Hercules Mulligan who was a slave-owner even five years after he helped set up the New York Manumission. Calling Hercules Mulligan a hero after his record is glorifying slavery and that is disgraceful,” said NWMF Director of Programmes Lilian Seenoi-Barr. The forum has written to CC&GBC condemning the
He was the Ulster-born unsung hero of the American Revolution and one of its most important spies.
And while you may not have heard of Hercules Mulligan, it is a name you will be hearing a lot more of in the future if you visit the north coast.
The Irish-American tailor and spy during the American War of Independence is set to be honoured by Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council.
Members of the council s leisure and development committee voted to recognise him in future heritage trails.
The late spy was born in Coleraine on September 15, 1740, to Hugh and Sarah Mulligan, and emigrated to north America with his family in 1746.
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January 25, 2021 Ira Aldridge as Othello, the Moor of Venice, 1826, 2ft 6in by 2ft 1in, by James Northcote (1746–1831), Manchester Art Gallery. Credit: The Picture Art Collection / Alamy
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Ira Aldridge as Othello, the Moor of Venice by James Northcote
‘Recent events have shone a spotlight on black history, revealing many fascinating and untold stories. One such story is that of Ira Aldridge, the celebrated 19th-century Shakespearian actor. When I first saw the mesmerising portrait of this elegant, handsome and charismatic man, I was overwhelmed.
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Ever since the opening of the “Hamilton” musical on Broadway, interest in the life of our first treasury secretary has soared. This attention has not been entirely positive, though, as some of late have disputed whether Alexander Hamilton deserves the label of abolitionist, a title he never sought.
Monday, December 21, 2020
Breakfast Room at Belle Grove Plantation, White Chapel, Louisiana, by Walker Evans, 1935. Smithsonian American Art Museum, gift of Lee and Maria Friedlander, 2006.
Two years after South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States in December 1860, President Abraham Lincolnaddressed the Senate and House of Representatives, announcing his support for a plan that would pay reparations to slaveholders in border states (slave states that had not seceded) if they would implement gradual emancipation and pledge loyalty to the union. It was a last-ditch attempt to prevent further secession, and one that Lincoln justified with his opinion that “gradual, and not sudden, emancipation” would be “better for all.”