Research set of copies of letters received from Joseph Burtt, 1905-1907, from the James Duffy Collection in the African Collection, Yale University Library

This collection contains photocopies of a set of typescript copy letters from Joseph Burtt (1862-1939) to William Cadbury written during a visit to Africa on behalf of Cadbury Brothers, 30 May 1905-9 March 1907.

Joseph Burtt had been hired by William Cadbury on behalf of the chocolate firm Cadbury Brothers Limited to determine if the cocoa it was purchasing from the Portuguese West African colony of Sao Tome and Principe had been harvested by slave labourers from Angola. Burtt's letters to Cadbury record his observations during his six months in Sao Tome and Principe, and his year in Angola, and provide an insight into British and Portuguese attitudes at that time towards work, slavery, and race. Burtt visited numerous rocas and gained an understanding of working conditions on the agricultural estates. He talked to diplomats, health workers, missionaries, local workers, and African and European businessmen. He traced the slave route through Angola, and reported on the conditions and treatment faced both by free labourers and slaves. Towards the end of his visit in 1907, Burtt also conferred with mine owners and officials who supported most of the labour for the Transvaal's mines.

As reported in Catherine Higgs' book 'Chocolate Islands. Cocoa, Slavery, and Colonial Africa' (p xi), Burtt's detailed letters to Cadbury and his subsequent report had a significant impact in helping to improve working conditions. "Burtt wrote a stream of letters to Cadbury recording what he saw and whom he met...What Burtt wrote prompted Cadbury Brothers limited to seek alternative sources of cocoa. The report he prepared summarizing his observations was submitted to the British and Portuguese governments, and it helped reform the recruitment and treatment of labourers".

The papers in this collection are in the form of continuously paginated loose leaf sheets, pp 1-311 (missing pp 286-290), with some unnumbered pages comprising items which Burtt enclosed with his letters. The enclosures include a sketch map of S[ao] Thome (inserted between p 103-104); a map of Principe (inserted between p 131-132); [Burtt's] route to Kavungu (inserted between p 273-274); a map of Africa 'showing areas from which labour is drawn for mines' [p 299]; a copy of a poem by Burtt, dated March 1906, entitled 'The Wanton of the South' (inserted between p 181-182); and Burtt's notes on an article by Nevinson entitled, 'The Islands of Doom' (inserted between p 184-185).

Joseph Burtt's letters to William Cadbury were subsequently collected by James Duffy (b 1923), writer. There is some evidence of the papers having been used for research, most likely attributable to Duffy's work in the 1960s. For example, a manuscript note in pencil is inserted between pp 285 and 291 identifying missing pages; and notes Burtt enclosed with his letter of 19 March 1906 (pp 182-184), originally numbered pp 1-2, have been renumbered in pencil, pp 184a-184b.

Throughout his letters, Joseph Burtt spells Sao Tome as S. Thome.

The Burtt-Cadbury copy letters were amongst papers donated to Yale University Library's African Collection in 2000 by the widow of James Duffy, and subsequently held as the 'James Duffy Collection'. The collection largely comprises copies of records from the Cadbury company (now Cadbury Schweppes Ltd) archive which Duffy collected and used with permission to write books in the 1960s, including 'A Question of Slavery' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967) in which reference is made to the correspondence between Burtt and Cadbury. Catherine Higgs, during the course of research for her book 'Chocolate Islands. Cocoa, Slavery and Colonial Africa' (Ohio University Press, 2012), identified the copy letters in the James Duffy Collection as possibly having been mistakenly overlooked and therefore not retained for inclusion with the other papers which were donated to Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections in 1972 and subsequently catalogued as 'The Cadbury Papers' (source: information supplied by the donor at the time of donation).

Open, access to all registered

The copies were created for the Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, and presented in 2012 by Catherine Higgs, PhD, Associate Professor of History, University of Tennessee, with kind permission of Dorothy Woodson, curator of the African Collection at Yale University. The donor also presented a copy of her book 'Chocolate Islands. Cocoa, Slavery and Colonial Africa' (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2012).

Please see https://calmview.bham.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=XMS857&pos=1 for more information

The original set of copy letters are held in the Yale African Collection, University of Yale, Connecticut, USA.

Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Director, Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections (email: special-collections@contacts.bham.ac.uk). Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. The Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material.

Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections holds 'The Cadbury Papers', a collection largely relating to the firm of Cadbury and the Cocoa trade in West Africa from c 1900-1960, which includes correspondence and other papers relating to Joseph Burtt (reference: CADBURY).

Associated Materials

Other records of Cadbury Ltd, confectionery manufacturers and of the Cadbury family are held by Birmingham City Archives (GB 0143 MS446). Cadbury Ltd also retains some 19th and 20th century business archives (GB 2068).