Slavery & Abolition

Slave Trade (Execrable Human Traffick, or The Affectionate Slaves), George Morland, c.1788. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Public Domain.

Why Did Britain Abolish the Slave Trade?

The Slavery Abolition Act was passed by Parliament in 1833. What was really behind Britain’s moment of moral enlightenment?

Bronze seal-matrix of the Royal African Company, after 1663. Trustees of the British Museum.

African Princes Between the Companies

In 1717 two African princes were sold into slavery. Navigating London society and the machinations of the East India and Royal African Companies, they negotiated a path home.

Harriet Jones with her daughter and granddaughter, c.1936-38. From the Federal Writers’ Project archive. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

Black Voices from the Archive

The testimonies of formerly enslaved people, collected in the 1930s by the Federal Writers’ Project, provide a unique archive for historians.

Planter and his Wife, with a Servant, Agostino Brunias, c.1780. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Public Domain.

‘Heiresses’ by Miranda Kaufman review

Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery by Miranda Kaufman follows the money to reveal how Britain’s women of means profited from plantations.

The Portuguese slaver Diligenté captured by H.M. Sloop Pearl, Lieutenant Henry Samuel Hawker, May 1838. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Public Domain.

‘The Heretic of Cacheu’ and ‘Worlds of Unfreedom’ review

The Heretic of Cacheu by Toby Green and Worlds of Unfreedom by Roquinaldo Ferreira, painstakingly recreate the worlds at the beginning and end of Portugal’s slave trade.

World map identifying Asia with Shem, Europe with Japheth, and Africa with Ham. From Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, printed in Augsburg, 1472. Harry Ransom Center, The University of Austin, Texas. Public Domain.

Noah’s Ark and the Slave Trade

After the Flood, Noah’s sons were repurposed to support a new worldview justifying racial hierarchy and slavery.

‘Representation of an Insurrection on board a Slave-Ship’, by Carl Bernhard Wadström, 1794. Beinecke Library, Yale University. Public Domain.

Slavery After Abolition: Revolt on the Amelia

The slave trade was an international criminal enterprise. In 1811 an uprising on the slaving ship Amelia off the coast of West Africa revealed a complex network spanning four continents.