The British Transatlantic Slave Trade (4 vols.)

The British Transatlantic Slave Trade (4 vols.). Edited by KENNETH MORGAN, ROBIN LAW, JOHN OLDFIELD and DAVID RYDEN (London: Chatto & Windus, 2003; pp. lviii + 387, xxxvi + 347, xxxviii + 373, xxxiv + 428. £360). THIS handsome four-volume edition of texts dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries documents British involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade from its beginning to its official ending. Britain's direct participation in the slave trade lasted for almost 250 years (if one includes the slaving activities of John Hawkins—which were, however, but an isolated early venture), from the 1560s to the abolition of the slave trade by Parliament in 1807. Although compared with other European nations, the British (or, more correctly, the English) were late-comers in the trade, they nevertheless quickly dominated it. By the late seventeenth century they were the leading slave traders, their vessels carrying more slaves than those of any other nation; and they maintained this leading position throughout the eighteenth century. Britain's crucial role in the Transatlantic slave trade was matched by the importance which it had for Britain, deeply influencing British economic, political and social life. Paradoxically, however, it was also the British who led the struggle for its abolition in the late eighteenth century. The object of this collection of texts, as explained by its general editor, Kenneth Morgan, is to ‘provide researchers with a valuable corpus of contemporary material with which to evaluate the practice of the British slave trade and the reasons for its demise’ (I, xii). It comprises 23 texts relating to the trade in various ways, with each of the volumes focusing on a particular aspect. All of the texts have been previously published

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