Wales' slavery legacy explored in new play

It is important not to forget the "atrocities the British Empire was involved in," a playwright has said as her debut hit play heads to London.

Azuka Oforka, 43, was one of two winners of the best writer at the Stage Debut Awards last year for The Women of Llanrumney.

It explores Welsh links to slavery and the role of Sir Henry Morgan - the Welsh plantation owner and later Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica.

Azuka was inspired to write the play after a visit to Cardiff's Llanrumney Hall where she first learnt about Wales' connection to the Atlantic slave trade.

Azuka Oforka grew up in London but moved to Cardiff in 2012.

The English actress is known for her role in Casualty but has gone through a "whirlwind" 18 months writing her play.

"It's a debut that many writers would dream of. Hopefully it opens the door to tell many more stories," she said.

She was inspired after seeing a portrait of Sir Henry Morgan in Llanrumney Hall, the man who set up the Llanrumney sugar plantation in 18th Century Jamaica.

"It was captioned Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. I just knew that grandiose title had obscured a real brutal legacy of slavery," she said.

The Sherman Theatre in Cardiff was looking for stories that spoke to a Welsh audience at the time and representatives contacted Azuka, who felt it was her "call to arms" to explore Wales' links with slavery and the British Empire.

Sir Henry Morgan (1635-1688), the Llanrumney-born Caribbean buccaneer and one-time acting governor, became a plantation owner on the island and is commemorated in Morgan's Valley in Clarendon,­ a parish in Jamaica.

Azuka said she was "completely unaware" of his links to slavery, despite him being "a founding father of a slave colony".

"I would not have written this play had I been based anywhere else," she added.

The Women of Llanrumney will be played at London's Stratford East Theatre before returning to The Sherman in April.

Azuka said it has resonated with audiences who she was keen not to "patronize".

"This hidden history is brought to life in a rich electric, thought-provoking and thrilling night of theatre," she said.

The Atlantic slave trade "still shapes the modern world" according to Azuka, which makes this story relevant, despite it being set hundreds of years ago.

"It built vast wealth for Britain and it's left a legacy of economic, racial and social inequalities," she said.

Azuka would like to see more schools have an "honest conversation" about British history with their pupils.

"We don't really learn about the 400 years of immense wealth that it built for Britain and the people's lives that it affected generation after generation."

Azuka is "really excited" about the future and said she was brimming with ideas for her next play.

"I'm inspired to tell stories of marginalized women, working class women, black people," she said.

She is also keen to uncover more of Wales' hidden history.

Chris Evans, a history professor at University of South Wales and author of Slave Wales, said the nation had a "quite intimate relationship with the Caribbean".

"It had a niche role to play in that it supplied particular inputs to the wider Atlantic economy and to the Caribbean economy."

Demand for copper and brace led to the creation of the copper smelting industry in south Wales, leading to the district of Swansea becoming "Europe's leading copper producing region by the end of the 18th Century".

He said people would "become wealthy in the Caribbean then invest their money in real estate in Wales".

One person who benefited enormously was Sir Henry Morgan.

"He goes to the West Indies because he's not somebody who has many prospects in Wales or in England," said Prof Evans.

"He makes his money there and, like most people in the 17th Century, he reinvests what money he has in enslaved human beings.

"Caribbean planters were simply stupendously rich, I mean they were the oligarchs of their day."

While the planters have a past that is enshrouded in exploitation, their impact on Wales is still visible today.

"People of African descent in Wales tend to be one of two sorts. One is that they are children of Caribbean planters, that's to say, of a Welsh father and an African or Afro descendant.

"We can think of people like that, like Nathaniel Wells, who inherits a major estate in Monmouthshire."

Prof Evans said it was a "critical part" of Welsh history.

He added: "The more we look the more the linkages between the 18th Century Atlantic world, Britain as a society and a culture become apparent."