Sambo's Grave



Sambo's Grave is the burial site of a dark skinned cabin boy or slave, on unconsecrated ground in a field near the small village of Sunderland Point, near Heysham and Overton, Lancashire, North West England. Sunderland Point was a port, serving cotton, sugar and slave ships from the West Indies and North America, which declined after Glasson Dock was opened in 1787. It is a very small community only accessible via a narrow road, which crosses a salt marsh and is cut off at high tide.

History
In the early 18th century Sunderland Point was a port for Lancaster, serving ships too large to sail up to the town. According to the Lonsdale Magazine of 1822, Sambo had arrived around 1736 from the West Indies as a servant to the captain of an unnamed ship: "After she had discharged her cargo, he was placed at the inn ... with the intention of remaining there on board wages till the vessel was ready to sail; but supposing himself to be deserted by the master, without being able, probably from his ignorance of the language, to ascertain the cause, he fell into a complete state of stupefaction, even to such a degree that he secreted himself in the loft on the brewhouses and stretching himself out at full length on the bare boards refused all sustenance. He continued in this state only a few days, when death terminated the sufferings of poor Samboo. As soon as Samboo’s exit was known to the sailors who happened to be there, they excavated him in a grave in a lonely dell in a rabbit warren behind the village, within twenty yards of the sea shore, whither they conveyed his remains without either coffin or bier, being covered only with the clothes in which he died." - Lonsdale Magazine, 1822 It has been suggested that Sambo may have died from a disease contracted from contact with Europeans, to which he had no natural immunity, although some more romanticised stories say that he died of a broken heart when his enslaver left him there. He was buried in unconsecrated ground (as he was not a Christian) on the weatherbeaten shoreline of Morecambe Bay.

Plaque
With the opening of Glasson Dock in 1787, trade ships deserted Sunderland Point and it became a sea-bathing place and holiday venue. Sixty years after the burial a retired schoolmaster, James Watson, heard the story and raised money from summer visitors to the area for a memorial, to be placed on the unmarked grave. Watson, who was the brother of the prominent Lancaster slave trader, William Watson, also wrote the epitaph that now marks the grave (note the use of 'ſ', the Long s character and the eccentric and inconsistent spelling typical of the time):

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.

''James Watſon Scr. H.Bell del. 1796''

The site today
Today, official signposts on Sunderland Point define the grave and locality as a tourist attraction and the grave almost always bears flowers or stones painted by the local children.