Transatlantic Slavery

David Fleming is Director of National Museums Liverpool. Dr Richard Benjamin is Head of the International Slavery Museum, part of the National Museums Liverpool.

…very readable collection of articles from leading experts in the field of slavery studies. Walvin’s account of the move towards abolition makes particularly pertinent reading as we approach the 2007 bicentenary of the ending of the slave trade in Britain, but perhaps most relevant are the essays on how, and why, we should commemorate this difficult aspect of our history.David Musgrove, BBC History magazine

• ContentsForeword – Reverend Jesse JacksonWhat is slavery?A history of transatlantic slaveryAfrican pastsWhy Africans?Why slavery?Operation of the slave tradeLiverpool: Capital of the transatlantic slave tradeReasons for Liverpool’s successEconomic benefits of slaveryTropical goods and the rise of the consumer societyEnslavement and the Middle PassageThe Middle Passage: voyage through deathImpact on AfricaLife and death in the AmericasSale and ‘seasoning’Chattel slaveryPlantation lifePioneers of the AmericasResistanceMaroonsPro-slavery argumentsThe end of slaveryAbolition of the British slave tradeFreedom in the AmericasThe legacy of slaveryRacismThe fight for civil rightsGlobal inequalitiesSince colonisationReparationsCultural transformations‘The sun never sets on the children of Africa’An unquenchable spiritThe International Slavery MusuemFurther ReadingMuseums and websites to visitAcknowledgements