HIST 227 Britain and Slave Trade

This course explores British involvement in the slave trade and slavery during the long eighteenth century, a period in which some 3 million Africans were transported on British ships. Among other matters, it will examine the nature of the slave trade; the impact of slaving on the British economy and society; the complicity of Britons great and small in human trafficking; the emergence of a Black British community and the origins of a multicultural society; and the transformation of the world’s leading slave trading nation into a pioneering crusader for abolition and other humanitarian causes. The course will also explore the lives and perspectives of Africans and Black Britons such as Ignatius Sancho, Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano, Robert Wedderburn, Mary Prince, and Ashton Warner. Their voices and views on the slave trade, slavery and British society and politics will provide an opportunity to develop diverse cultural perspectives on the historical matters covered in this course.