Britannia’s Binding Thread

Britain's Slave Traders: A Forgotten History combines forensic new research with vivid and compelling narrative to provide an entirely new history of Britain that for the first time clarifies the true significance of the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans to Britain’s development as a modern nation. Between the birth of the trade in the 16th century and its abolition in 1807, Britain derived vast wealth from the traffic in Africans from West Africa to the Americas - but until now the people who conceived, designed and engineered that trade have been largely unknown to us. As a result, it has been impossible to trace where the wealth derived from slavery went, what purposes it was put to, who it empowered and what it enabled. This erasure was a conscious decision on the part of the abolitionists, who realised that success in their mission relied on it. But by bringing these people and institutions fully into the light for the first time, this book fills a hugely significant gap in Britain's history, one that has profoundly distorted our understanding of how Britain became such a prosperous and dominant global force and, perhaps surprisingly, how it came to enjoy a reputation as a progressive, philanthropic, freedom-loving nation. We discover that Britain’s slave traders came from a wide range of social backgrounds: plumbers as well as politicians, instrument makers as well as monarchs, women and immigrants as well as aristocrats and merchants. From the birth of the Royal Navy, the restoration of the Stuart monarchy and the emergence of two-party politics to the winning of wars, the founding of modern industry and the building of ports, canals and thriving cities, their profits can now be identified as having had a profound influence on Britain’s economy, politics, science and arts during a crucially formative period, setting it on its path to becoming the nation we know today.