HST3203 - The Rise and Fall of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1640-1807

HST3203: The Rise and Fall of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1640-1807

40 credits (semesters 1 and 2)

Module Leader: Dr Michael Bennett (2024-25)

Module Summary

The transatlantic slave trade is the largest forced migration in human history. Europeans transported 12 million captive Africans across the Atlantic Ocean between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. This contributed to the development of a transatlantic economic system that linked three continents - Europe, Africa, and the Americas - and which funnelled wealth created through the exploitation of enslaved Africans into the hands of Europeans.  Britain was the pre-eminent slave trading nation of the eighteenth century. From 1640 to 1807, British vessels trafficked 3.2 million captive Africans across the Atlantic to work in the plantation economies of North America and the Caribbean. This module traces the rise and fall of Britain's participation in the transatlantic slave trade, studying developments in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Britain, and exploring the linkages between the three. It begins in the seventeenth century with the corporate activities of the London-based Royal African Company, moves into the eighteenth century when non-corporate merchants based in the outports of Liverpool and Bristol dominated the trade, and ends with Abolitionist efforts to abolish British involvement in the trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  The module is fully Atlantic in scope. Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources we will analyse the process of cross-cultural exchange on the West African coast, the horrors of the Middle Passage, the exploitation of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean plantation system, and the direct and indirect impacts of the transatlantic slave trade on early modern Britain. We will make regular use of case studies to explore the history of the transatlantic slave trade 'from below', foregrounding the lived experience of enslavement for captive Africans and the vital role of African Abolitionists in precipitating the process of abolition.

Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the module students will be able to:

• Situate British participation in the transatlantic slave trade in the broader history of the Atlantic world, especially the histories of West Africa and the Caribbean.

• Critically analyse a broad range of primary texts pertinent to the transatlantic slave trade, recognising their historical significance and relating where appropriate to historiographical debate.

• Demonstrate an advanced understanding of Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and its eventual abolition.

• Evaluate historiographical debate around themes and issues in the history of the British transatlantic slave trade, and to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of differing historical interpretation.

• Express ideas with fluency and precision in oral class participation and written work.

• Critically reflect on the legacies of transatlantic slavery in modern Britain, West Africa, and the Caribbean and be better prepared to navigate the current 'culture wars' in the media by appreciating the crucial distinction between the history and memory of Britain's links to transatlantic slavery.

Assessment

Please see this page for further information about assessment.