Teaching the Transatlantic Slave Trade

This project is based on Balliol’s autumn 2021 exhibition, Slavery in the Age of Revolution and was inspired by the publication of The Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (a biography about the leader of the Haitian Revolution) by Balliol Fellow, Professor Sudhir Hazareesingh. It also draws on the research of Dr Sebastian Pender who used Balliol’s archives to determine the extent to which Balliol College benefited from bequests linked to the slave trade in phase one of the Balliol and Empire project to re-examine and better understand the College’s complex relationship to empire.  The exhibition takes a long view from 15th-century encounters between established African societies and emerging European nation states, to the legacies of Transatlantic slavery in our present. Focusing on the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it examines how Transatlantic slavery was viewed by those consuming its products, using Balliol College’s community as a case study. Histories of resistance to slavery on Jamaican plantations owned by benefactors of the College, and Sudhir Hazareesingh’s research foreground the often-overlooked revolutions of this age. 

The college’s equality and diversity work involves students and staff at all levels and there is considerable support for initiatives that increase awareness and cultural understanding about Black History in the UK and the USA. For this reason we have decided to broaden the impact of the Slavery in the Age of Revolution exhibition by working with a small group of committed History teachers from the UK and the USA to consider how the exhibition materials may be used to improve the quality of teaching about the Transatlantic slave trade in schools within both countries. We are fortunate to have links with the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia through our alumni community. The Museum is supporting this project by providing academic expertise and resources, drawing upon their own work with students, teachers, and the general public to explore the role of slavery and the experiences of enslaved people in the story of the American Revolution.