Slavery, abolition and British metropolitan society (terms 1 and 2)

This course examines the impact on metropolitan Britain of its involvement in colonial slavery, with particular emphasis on the often-neglected period following the abolition of the slave-trade. It analyses both the nature and extent of absentee slave-ownership, and traces the more systemic effects of slavery’s contribution to Britain’s industrial and commercial transformation, drawing on new work on the structure of slave-ownership in Britain, as well as on the established historiographical debates still flowing from Eric Williams’ important work, Capitalism and Slavery.

The primary aims of the course are (1) to encourage students to appreciate the complexity and limits of the contestation reflected in the primary materials, the contestation not only between slave-owners and abolitionists but also within each of the pro- and anti-slavery sides; (2) to familiarise students with the broad questions raised by Williams and the subsequent historiography on Britain’s ‘debt to slavery; (3) to examine some of the evidence for slavery’s penetration of British metropolitan life; and (4) to enable students to engage critically with the controversy over reparations for slavery.

Assessment: two 4,000 word course papers