Background Reading

Sculpture of Nelson Mandela's Face

Apartheid

Policies of racial segregation and the legal enforcement of White supremacy had been fundamental to the social and political landscape of southern Africa since the arrival of...

The Georgian House - Library

Bristol

When the Royal African Company was founded in 1672, it was given a monopoly over the British slave trade. But from the first, it could not satisfy the American planters’...

This watercolour shows the navy being used to put down a violent rising by slaves in Jamaica.

Bussa and Christmas Rebellions

I would rather die on yonder gallows than live in slavery. Samuel Sharpe, May 1832 There was a constant state of tension in the Caribbean between the enslaved workers and those who...

Portrait of Thomas Clarkson (1760 - 1846)

Campaigning against Slavery

The role of the Quakers in abolition The forced transportation and enslavement of over 11 million Africans to the plantations of the Caribbean and the Americans inspired the first...

'Slave in Chains'

Capture and Enslavement

Slavery in early sub-Saharan Africa took a variety of forms. While most slaves were field workers, some served in royal courts as officials, soldiers, servants and artisans....

Colonisation and changes to Africa

To open to civilisation the only part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I daresay, a crusade worthy of this...

Guinea Coin, 1686

Economics and the Accumulation of Wealth

From 1441, European enslavement of Africans was initially at the hands of the Spanish and the Portuguese. According to a Portuguese account: Their covetousness now began to wax...

Frontis-piece of Olaudah Equiano

First Hand Acccounts

There are a number of eye-witness accounts of the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade and the infamous Atlantic crossing, the voyage across the Atlantic that could take as...

Map of France from 1852

France Case Study

On the eve of the transatlantic slave trade, France had a large and growing population: between the early 17th and mid-18th century, it increased from 24 million to 26 million. But...

Haiti

The island of Hispaniola, which is today shared by the Dominican Republic to the east and Haiti to the west, was the first permanent European settlement in the Americas. Sugar and...

Portrait of William Wilberforce (1759 - 1833)

Hull

The city of Kingston upon Hull has a centuries-old sea-faring commercial history, but its location on the east coast of England ensured that its commerce was shaped by maritime...

Map of Africa

Introduction To Various African Kingdoms

Ancient Ghana Founded as a kingdom around AD 300, the empire of Ghana reached its height in the 10th and 11th centuries. Becoming a superstate, it also controlled territories that...

Engraved commemorative coin, the Amacree, 1788

Liverpool

Bristol continued its involvement in the slave trade until abolition but in decreasing numbers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. By that stage, other commodities were...

The Thomas King entering London Docks, 1827, by William John Huggins (1781-1845)

London

Although London would eventually be eclipsed by Bristol and Liverpool as a slave-trading port, its involvement in the trade was both longer and more complex than that of the other...

'Trelawny Town, the chief residence of the Maroons'

Nanny and the Maroons

Although she is a national hero in Jamaica, little is known with certainty about Nanny’s life. She is a mythical as well as a legendary figure and it is therefore often...

A Dutch ship at sail

Netherlands Case Study

The Dutch were to become key figures in the story of the slave trade and slavery. Even before the establishment of the Dutch Republic in 1581 and despite the periodic wars with...

Frontis-piece of Olaudah Equiano

Personal Accounts

The personal accounts of former slaves were incredibly important in strengthening the case for abolition, as they brought to light the harsh realities of the system of...

Portugal Case Study

Portugal, which pioneered the opening of the wider world to European trade and conquest, seems an unlikely country to have exercised such remarkable influence. It had a small...

The cover of the Macpherson report

Racially Motivated Crimes

Much of the racism and discrimination towards people of African heritage can be traced back to the negative attitudes and stereotypes that were prevalent at the time of...

Bunce Island, Sierra Leone

Slave forts case study

Once the captured Africans arrived at the Atlantic, they were taken to one of the many slave forts that could be found along the coastline, where they would wait to be transported...

Spain Case Study

The establishment of African slavery in the Americas and the flow of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic were factors in changing the nature and balance of power in Europe....

'A rebel negro armed and on his guard'

Tacky's Rebellion

People from the ‘Gold Coast’ (modern-day Ghana) – Akan, Ashanti and Coromanti – were often at the forefront of slave revolts in Jamaica during the 17th and 18th...

Token for Thomas Hall

The Human Zoo

The exhibition of ‘human curiosities’ had been an essential component of travelling fairs and carnivals in Europe from the Middle Ages. As advances in the technology of...

The Lost Libraries Of Timbuktu

Until recently, many commentators on Africa claimed that African societies had no tradition of writing. With the rediscovery of ancient manuscript collections, some dating back to...

Account book for the Snow, 'Molly', a slave ship

The Zong

On 19 March 1783, the African Olaudah Equiano called on anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp (see Campaign for abolition with news of an event that, even by the standards of the...

A port bow view of Empire Windrush

Windrush

The Windrush Generation London is the place for me/ London that lovely city/ You can go to France or America / India, Asia or Africa / But you must come back to London City …...