The British Transatlantic Slave Trade
General Editor: Kenneth Morgan
Volume Editors: Robin Law, David Ryden and John Oldfield
978 1 85196 756 8: 234x156mm: £350.00/$625.00
The British transatlantic slave trade, which flourished from the mid-seventeenth century until the early nineteenth century, was a major conduit for the enforced migration of Africans to the Americas. Between 1660 and 1807 over three million Africans were dispatched to the Americas in British vessels. This trade has been the subject of intensive academic scrutiny over the past generation and has also attracted a growing popular curiosity.
The British Transatlantic Slave Trade offers a selection of primary printed resource texts relating to the British slave trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The edition is of particular interest to scholars of History, Economics and American Studies, and the collection as a whole provides a stimulating and accessible range of contemporary commentary, facilitating research on all major facets of the British slave trade. Most of the texts have not been reprinted or edited in modern editions, and will now be made more widely available to scholars.
Contents
Volume 1: The Operation of the Slave Trade in Africa
John Hawkins, A true declaration of the troublesome voyage of M John Hawkins to the parties of Guynea and the West Indies, in the yeares of our Lord 1567 and 1568 (1569); John Matthews, A Voyage to the River Sierra-Leone (1788); John Adams, Sketches taken during Ten Voyages to Africa between the years 1786 and 1800 (1821); Gomer Williams, excerpt from History of the Liverpool Privateers and Letters of Marque, with an Account of the Liverpool Slave Trade (1897)
Volume 2: The Royal African Company
Certain Considerations relating to the Royal African Company of England ... (1680); A True State of the present difference between the Royal African Company and the Separate Traders ... written by a true lover of his country (1710); The Case of the Royal African Company of England (1730); Charles Hayes, The importance of effectually supporting the Royal African Company of England, impartially consider’d ... (1744); Malachy Postlethwayt, The African Trade, the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Trade in North America (1745); Malachy Postlethwayt, The National and Private Advantages of the African Trade Considered (1746)
Volume 3: The Abolitionist Struggle: Opponents of the Slave Trade
Robert Boucher Nickolls, Letter to the Treasurer of the Society for the Purpose of Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1787); Thomas Cooper, Letters on the Slave Trade (1787); [William Roscoe], A General View of the African Slave-Trade (1788); James Field Stanfield, Observations on a Guinea Voyage (1788); Thomas Cochrane, Answers to the Fifth Table of Queries (1789); Thomas Clarkson, The Substance of the Evidence of Sundry Persons on the Slave Trade (1789); [William Fox], An Address to the People of Great Britain, on the Utility of Refraining from West India Sugar and Rum (1791)
Volume 4: The Abolitionist Struggle: Promoters of the Slave Trade
A Planter, Commercial Reasons for the Non-Abolition of the Slave Trade, in the West-India Islands, by a Planter and Merchant of many Years Residence in the West-Indies (1789); [Gilbert Francklyn], Observations, Occasioned by the Attempts made in England to Effect the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1789); William Knox, A Letter from W K Esq To W Wilberforce, Esq (1790); [Capt. Macarty], An Appeal to the Candour and Justice of the People of England in Behalf of the West India Merchants and Planters (1792); Report from the Committee of the Honourable House of [the Jamaican] Assembly (1800); Mercator, Letters Concerning the Abolition of the Slave-Trade and Other West-India Affairs (1807)
Reviews
‘a welcome addition to the existing literature'
– Adam Jones, African Studies Review
'[This] new collection of primary source material on the slave trade is to be welcomed by students and scholars...the introductory essays by each editor (and the general introduction by Kenneth Morgan) provide superb overviews on most key topics in the study of the British slave trade and its abolition.'
– Malyn Newitt, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History