Liverpool - Capital of the Slave Trade - Softcover

In the four centuries following Columbus' voyage of 1492 over ten million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic to labour as slaves on the plantations of the New WorldA". The major slave-trading port in Britain was Liverpool. By the beginning of the nineteenth century Liverpool had control of 90% of Britain's share of the slave trade. When the slave trade was threatened with abolition at the close of the eighteenth century, Liverpool rallied to its defence. Whilst a flood of petitions opposing abolition swept down to Parliament, local writers praised the slave trade for bringing labour to the colonies, happiness to the slaves, and wealth to Liverpool. This booklet deals with the significance of the slave trade in the history of Liverpool. In particular, it looks at how Liverpool writers of the eighteenth century sought to justify the town's involvement in the slave trade. A concluding section shows how Liverpool's historians have obscured the role played by the town as the capital of the British slave trade.