The legacies of British slave ownership

The Legacies of British Slave Ownership project has explored the significance of slavery to Britain's history, including the wealth it generated for industrialisation. Such histories are crucial for understanding the present, given that disavowal of these legacies has been central to white British thinking. The project's mapping of who received compensation after abolition showed the widespread incidence of slave ownership across the whole of the UK. Focusing on individual stories can be an illuminating way of identifying systemic patterns of inequality and questions of social, economic and political structure. A further legacy has been the way ideas on race developed by white plantation owners still inform contemporary thinking. An important first step towards reparation is understanding and knowing what happened, and breaking the patterns of denial.