Rachael Scally draws out the legacies of slavery of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and what it means for the decolonisation of Scotland's healthcare institutions.
How was the eighteenth-century pursuit of knowledge intertwined with enslavement and empire? Lucy Moynihan on the history of literary institutions in the British colonial world.
The term 'racial capitalism' has been widely used by activists and historians. Catherine Hall turns to the 18th century entanglements between Jamaica and England to reflect on the shifting forms of racial capitalism across generations.
Who were Alexander Hamilton’s blood relatives? What did they value and how did this influence the founding father’s own attitudes toward slavery? Richard Addington explores.
Feminist history often focusses on salvaging the experiences of women from the margins of history. But how is feminist history challenged by women complicit it enslavement? Misha Ewen explores in this piece.
How did enslaved women calculate risks when petitioning for their freedom in colonial Mexico? Amos Megged explores the complex life story of María de la Candelaria, arguing that enslaved women sought restitution of their rights, and…
Newspaper advertisements for enslaved boys who escaped into early modern London reveal very little about the freedom seekers, and rather more about those who enslaved them. But what can we learn of Cuffee, who risked everything to escape in…
In 1947 The Abeokuta Women's Union staged an influential tax revolt. How can understanding these women's sense of time, including their vision for the future, increase our historical understanding?
In the late eighteenth century Wedgwood’s medallion rallied people to the radical cause of abolition. Can it still inspire radical change today? Georgia Haseldine discusses the medallion’s historic radical power and re-making the…
How should we understand the connections between the transatlantic slave trade, the expansion of the British Empire, and the history of Australia? Emma Christopher explores.
How do we name empire and genocide, the structural violence embedded in our built environments, and why does it matter? Melanie J. Newton unpicks the contested legacy of Henry Dundas, eighteenth-century imperialist & "Uncrowned King of…
A culture of hyper-vigilantism and the conflation of skin colour with criminality did not begin with the abolition of slavery or with the current age of mass incarceration. Joseph Yannielli and Christine Whyte explore its 18th-century…
Madge Dresser argues that statues of slave traders, such as Edward Colston, often served complex local and civic objectives, which were inextricable from historical processes which silenced the voices of enslaved Africans.
In 1860, decades after the abolition of slavery in Britain, the British economy was more reliant on slave labour than ever before. Mark Harvey explores the links between coerced labour and the production of three crucial commodities: guns,…
How did haircutting and haircare shape narratives of slavery, oppression, and belonging in the early modern Mediterranean? Stefan Hanß explores the intimate politics of hair.
Katie Donnington writes about the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project and the launch of the British Slave-ownership database, which has seen renewed interest in the issues of transatlantic slavery and the acknowledgement of this…
