Sambo's Grave

I have always loved the North West of England. I cannot quite put my finger on it - being there just feels right. Before I headed south from Liverpool, I hired a car and took myself on a rambling drive through some of my favourite landscapes. There was one location that I was determined to visit, having failed to do so before. I went to visit Sambo's Grave.

Sambo's Grave is a strange visitor attraction in an equally strange location. It can be found at Sunderland Point, a bleak little hamlet on a muddy peninsula which is cut off each day as the tides come in and out. It sits staring out across the estuary of the River Lune, where it flows into Morecambe Bay - a one-time port for the city of Lancaster and an important destination serving the slave ships. The Point itself will not always be around. It is slowly eroding away and will disappear as surely as the trade that once gave it purpose.

Sambo was a slave - a cabin boy - who arrived in Sunderland Point in 1736. He was so distraught at being left behind by his enslaver that he refused to eat and starved himself to death. Or so the legend goes. An alternative theory was that he simply contracted a disease that his immune system was ill-equipped to handle. Either way, his plight touched the hearts of the locals and he was buried in unconsecrated ground near the shoreline. His grave has become something of a shrine and the last resting place of this enslaved cabin boy has become a focal point for the story of slavery in the Lancaster area.

People from all over the world make their way across the mud flats at low tide and through the rocky fields to find his grave. Painted stones and messages written on rocks adorn the site, whilst the grave itself has a plaque  which reads...

Here lies

Poor Samboo

A faithfull Negro

Who

(Attending his Maſter from the Weſt Indies)

Died on his Arrival at Sunderland

Full sixty Years the angry Winter's Wave

  Has thundering daſhd this bleak & barren Shore

Since Sambo's Head laid in this lonely Grave

  Lies still & ne'er will hear their turmoil more.

Full many a Sandbird chirps upon the Sod

  And many a Moonlight Elfin round him trips

Full many a Summer's Sunbeam warms the Clod

  And many a teeming Cloud upon him drips.

But still he sleeps _ till the awakening Sounds

  Of the Archangel's Trump new Life impart

Then the Great Judge his Approbation founds

  Not on Man's Color but his_Worth of Heart

It is a sad tale - given all the more poignancy by the bleak surroundings. Just to the north, Heysham Nuclear Power Station looms large, whilst the hamlet itself sits awaiting it's own somewhat watery grave. The story, just like its location, is so touched by contrasts - bleak & beautiful, cruel & kind, sad yet uplifting. The main quality shared by slavery and Sunderland Point - an eventual demise. If you ever get the chance, go visit.