The book Slave Traders in Britain: A Forgotten History is presented by the historian William A. Pettigrew comprehensively analyzed the history of British colonialism, uniting the traditional narrative that marginalizes the profits of human trafficking.
The book relies on a database that reveals the thousands of British investors who were involved in the forced transfer of millions of Africans, explaining how the profits of this trade penetrated deep into the social, political and economic fabric of Britain. It also highlights the role of these funds in financing infrastructure and institutions.Criticising “collective cultural forgetting” and obliterating the real identities of perpetrators in favour of focusing on abolition movements.
Pettigrew's historical account suggests that the trade began in the 1660s through an alliance between merchants from the cities and maritime and state officials, before receiving royal support, for reasons associated with the conflict with Spain, the expansion of British influence in the New World, the entrenchment of presence in West Africa, and the strengthening of royal treasury resources.But the landscape changed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when English slave traders gradually moved away from their direct attachment to the crown and towards the logic of the free market, widening the base of participants in the trade and moving it from London to other regions.
The cities of Bristol and Liverpool emerged as major centres of commerce, before Liverpool in the eighteenth century became central to its organisation and expansion.
