Britain and the Slave Trade

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 October 2021

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Britain was a key player in the transportation of millions of enslaved Africans to the colonies. Their labour in often brutal conditions was a vital component in enriching Britain and turning it into a global superpower. The business of slavery did not just make plantation owners and other elites wealthy though, in fact, its reach touched every aspect and stratum of British society. From the money to found schools, to welsh cloth makers, publicans, chocolate makers to Sir Isaac Newton and the scientific revolution Britain truly was a slave society, even if those slaves were thousands of miles away in the Americas or the Caribbean. To explore the hidden history of slavery Dan is joined by Moya Lothian-McLean, a journalist and presenter of the fantastic Human Resources podcast which examines this issue. Moya and Dan discuss the role of slavery in British economics and society and also her very personal connection to this story as the descendent of both Black African Slaves and White slave owners or overseers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, welcome to Downsnow's History. I'm just lying on my bunk, taking a little
0:04.6	break during a day of intense activity on a beautiful, square rigged wooden ship of
0:10.6	the South coast of England. I'm here, and I'm cabin with four people in it, four of us
0:15.3	from Team History hit, snoring away last night, I'd tell you they did. But all day we're
0:19.8	filming on this wonderful tool ship, making a program not about Nelson. No, there's too
0:24.1	many programs about him, about the men of his fleet. And some women, in fact, the men
0:28.5	and women of Nelson's fleet, who collectively made Britain the most dominant maritime
0:33.4	force the world had ever known. We're doing that because at least this month is the anniversary
0:38.3	of Trafalgar. I'll be releasing this program on HistoryHit.tv. Please do check it out.
0:42.8	It's like Netflix, a history, it's wonderful, history documentaries. And I will also be
0:46.4	doing a special podcast on the Battle of Trafalgar. Now usually I do these instructions,
0:52.4	I say this has nothing to do with the content of this podcast. But I'm thrilled to say
0:56.2	it does have something to do with the content of this podcast because while the Royal Navy
0:59.6	was smashing the French and Spanish in the early years of the 19th century, it was also
1:04.4	guarding Britain's merchant ships that were carrying enslaved Africans to plantations
1:09.3	in the new world and bringing back the sugar, the produce of those plantations back to Europe.
1:15.3	Happily, just a couple of years after Trafalgar, the slave trade was abolished and those same
1:19.6	naval ships found themselves in the position of having to suppress that trade now illegal
1:24.9	in enslaved Africans. Slavery is being talked about ever at the moment. It feels like
1:28.6	we're having a reappraisal of Britain and other European nations roles in the Transatlantic
1:33.2	slave trade. And my guest on the podcast today has been part of that reappraisal. She
1:38.3	is the excellent Moia Lothian McLean with a very particular personal story that connects
	...

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