Rasselas Belfield (c.1790-1822):
The Parish Church of St Martin, Lake Road, Bowness-on-Windermere LA23 3DE
Rasselas Belfield was born in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). In circumstances that can now only be imagined, he was sold by his mother to Major Peter Taylor for the equivalent of £5. Taylor’s regiment had served in India in the epic campaign by the East India Company against the celebrated Sultan of Mysore, which had resulted in the latter’s death in 1799. It is not clear whether Taylor bought the boy whilst in India, where Abyssinians had been present as slaves and soldiers since the 15th century, or whether he had acquired him on his return to England via Abyssinia.
The first record of Rasselas Belfield occurs in the baptismal records for 17th April 1803, where he is recorded as “Rasilais Bellefield, Captain Taylor’s servant of Bellefield”. He would have been around 13 years of age. The name Rasselas was possibly inspired by The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, a popular novel by Samuel Johnson published in 1759, and Belfield was the name of the family’s house in Bowness on Windermere.
The Taylor family had made their fortunes both in India and South Carolina, where they were absentee plantation owners. Rasselas joined the household as the family were undergoing a significant shift in their attitudes towards slavery, eventually becoming staunch abolitionists. Initially, however, Rasselas was probably a very fashionable item of exotica. By all accounts Rasselas soon endeared himself to the household and was much mourned when he died, as reflected in the sentiments expressed on the headstone. The verse was possibly written by a local poet and ardent abolitionist, Isabella Lickbarrow.
The headstone received Grade II listing in 2007 to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery. The citation also notes the significance of another headstone in the churchyard – that of John Bolton, a slave trader and plantation owner.
Inscription:
IN MEMORY
of
RASSELAS BELFIELD
a Native of
ABYSSINIA.
Who departed this Life on the
16. Day of January 1822,
Aged 32 Years.
A Slave by birth I left my native Land
And found my Freedom on Britannia’s Strand:
Blest Isle! Thou Glory of the Wise and Free,
Thy Touch alone unbinds the Chains of Slavery.
