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Pero’s Afterlife: Remembering an Enslaved African in Bristol

In this chapter Madge Dresser introduces the reader to Pero (also known as William Jones), who was the enslaved manservant to plantation owner and sugar merchant John Pretor Pinney, first in Nevis and then in Bristol, and recounts what little is known of his life. Dresser then turns her attention to what she calls Pero’s “afterlife”—how he has come to symbolize Bristol’s past reliance on the transatlantic slave and the city’s failures to recognize and come to terms with its past. Dresser particularly focuses on the gradual and overdue efforts at the Pinney mansion (now known as the Georgian House) to acknowledge the role of slavery in Pinney’s wealth and to highlight Pero’s life there and the controversial (and ultimately successful) campaign to name a pedestrian bridge in honor of Pero to draw attention to the black presence in Bristol and its ties to slavery.