New Thinking: Women and Slavery
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New research on female slave owners in Britain, women on Caribbean plantations, and the daughter of a prominent slave trader. Christienna Fryar talks to researchers Katie Donnington, Meleisa Ono-George, and Hannah Young.
We hear about the daughter of Thomas Hibbert - one of the most prominent slave traders in Kingston, Jamaica - and the revelation that before she died she had intended to ask her mother to free the enslaved people she held; the risks taken by women who had children with their owners and who fought for the rights of those children; and female absentee slave owners in Britain.
Katie Donnington lectures in history at London South Bank University. She has published a book called The Bonds Of Family: Slavery, Commerce And Culture In The British Atlantic World. She was an historical advisor for the BBC2 documentary Britain’s Forgotten Slave-Owners (2015), and co-curated Slavery, Culture, and Collecting at the Museum of London Docklands (2018-2019).
Dr Meleisa Ono-George is at the University of Warwick. She has researched the ways in which women of African descent in Jamaica were discussed in relation to prostitution, concubinage, and other forms of sexual-economic exchange in legal, political, and cultural discourses in nineteenth century Jamaica and Britain.
Hannah Young is at the University of Southampton, where she focuses on late eighteenth and early 19th century Britain, with a particular interest in exploring the relationship between Britain and empire and absentee slave ownership.
This episode was made in partnership with the AHRC, part of UKRI. You can find more about New Research in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90 - where you’ll find other episodes in the New Thinking strand showcasing academic research.
You might also be interested in this conversation featuring Katie and Christienna and a novelist and dramatist who have considered slavery history: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f7d5
This episode looks at the law on modern slavery: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jnmc
Producer: Emma Wallace
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps it. It's a long time ago, right? |
| 0:23.2 | It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's |
| 0:27.5 | out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.6 | Hello, I'm Christina Fryer. I'm a lecturer in Black British history and convener of the |
| 0:36.9 | MA in Black British history at Golder of the MA in Black British History |
| 0:38.2 | at Goldsmith's University of London. In this episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, we're focusing |
| 0:43.8 | on new thinking in UK universities about colonial history and slavery. Today I'm talking with three |
| 0:50.0 | historians, Kate Donington, Melissa Ono George, and Hannah Young, who researched the ways that |
| 0:56.0 | elite women in Britain and mixed-race women in the Caribbean navigated the worlds of British |
| 1:00.8 | slavery. What new methodologies are necessary to do this history ethically? And how can these |
| 1:06.6 | histories transform public understanding of how central slavery and the Caribbean was to Britain in the 18th and 19th century. |
| 1:14.4 | Kate Donington is senior lecturer in history at London South Bank University. Her first book, |
| 1:19.5 | The Bons of Family, Slavery, Commerce, and Culture in the British Atlantic world was published in 2019. |
| 1:26.4 | Melissa Ono George is Associate Professor of History at the University of Warwick |
| 1:30.3 | and a history of the Anglo-Caribbean. Her work includes research in the intersections of race, |
| 1:36.1 | gender, and sexuality in 19th century Jamaica and developing anti-racist ways of teaching. |
| 1:42.4 | Hannah Young is lecturer in history at the University of Southampton. |
| 1:46.0 | She is a historian of late 18th and early 19th century Britain, and she researches gender |
| 1:50.7 | and absentee slave ownership during this period. |
| 1:53.9 | Kate, Melissa, and Hannah, welcome. |
| 1:56.6 | According to the legacies of British slave ownership project, when the British government compensated former slave owners |
| 2:02.6 | for the loss of their human property in the 1830s, |
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