LIVERPOOL links with the slave trade have been well documented, writes Robin Bird.

But now Wirral author David Hollett has written a book on a lesser known post-slavery controversy, the recruitment and shipping to colonial landowners of 'indentured workers' to replace them. This hardback publication will appeal to serious readers of social and maritime history.

'Passage From India to El Dorado' tells how thousands of slaves were made free in 1832 from the British colony of Guyana. It was, in fact, Sir Walter Raleigh's fabled land of El Dorado. New 'indentured workers' had to be found for the plantations and most were transported in from India. Liverpool merchant Sir John Gladstone, father of the great Liberal statesman, was prime mover in this controversial scheme shipping cheap emigrant labour from one side of the globe to the other. British Guyana took in more than 430,000 of these 'colonists' between 1838 and 1917.

Ships were needed to transport these cargoes of luckless people and Liverpool shipping companies were involved in this trade.

One Captain Angel, with strong family links in Birkenhead, wrote an autobiography, 'The Clipper Ship Sheila' in 1920 about this immigrant trade when he was 78.

Hollett chronicles the adventures of Angel and traces ship owners William Henry Angel and David Atwood, both of Birkenhead.

The full rigged clipper 'Sheila', for Sanbach, Tinne and Co., of Liverpool, was built to carry 'coolies'. Angel's command of the vessel is a mix of a great sailing story and a 'Gone With the Wind'-like social study with a background of slavery.

Hollard investigates the link of Master Mariner William Angel, of Liverpool, and one Ephrain Angel, whose home in 1867 was Webberley House, Charesville, Claughton, the year the 'Maid of the Mill' sank. It was once commanded by William. "She was an ugly, leaky old craft," he recalled.

Hollard uses Kelly's Directories of 1870-90 to come up with such detail in this novel about ships, owners, wrecks. It is a detailed insight into 19th-century British colonial policy, describing how anti-slavery and indentured labour policies clashed; a subject given scant coverage until now.

David Hollett's other books include 'The Alabama Affair', the story of the controversial Confederate warship built by Laird, and 'Men of Iron', the history of the shipyard itself.

'Passenger from India to El Dorado' is for the discerning reader, published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 328 pages, price £42.50.

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