Learning Resources
Here you will find links to essential bodies of research into Nottingham’s connections to enslavement
A Glossary of Terminology for Understanding Transatlantic Enslavement and ‘Race
Holding its ethnic diversity as vitally important, Nottingham has been a particularly active hotspot for a variety of anti-racist activity. It was a prominent location of Britain’s BLM movement with the first BLM chapter in the country being founded in the city in 2015.
Approached by numerous educators across the county of Nottinghamshire, researchers at the University of Nottingham have worked in unison with them to produce a series of culturally sensitive anti-racist educational materials. Composed within the context of transatlantic slavery and racism, these resources are orientated towards the inequalities that are experienced by people of African and African-Caribbean heritage.
Many thanks to the researchers at the University of Nottingham for access to these resources.
Images of Enslavement: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora
The images have been selected from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery. Our growing collection currently has over 1,200 images. This website is envisioned as a tool and a resource that can be used by teachers, researchers, students, and the general public - in brief, anyone interested in the experiences of Africans who were enslaved and transported to the Americas and the lives of their descendants in the slave societies of the New World.
Included in these collections are hundreds of photographs and illustrations of enslaved men and women, try different searches eg: Slavery, Cotton, Plantation etc.
Please be aware some of the imagery may cause depictions of Black oppression that some may find distressing.
Global Cotton Connections: The Derwent Valley Mills
In recent years members of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site Partnership have been researching the wider international links of the DVMWHS story, in line with UNESCO’s aspirations for the Site. This has involved investigating the sources for the raw cotton (and silk, to an extent), which fed the ferocious appetite of the mills along the valley and elsewhere.
Much of the raw cotton was produced by enslaved people in the Americas. The industrialisation of Britain and the greater productivity of the factory system, which began in the Derwent Valley, led to unprecedented demands for cotton which contributed to an inhuman and brutal regime of historic global slavery.
This folio of biographies was largely compiled during 2020 and 2021 by a team of volunteers, led by Dr Stephen Walker, as part of the Bright Ideas Nottingham’s Legacy Makers Project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
This is a biographical study of mill workers commemorated on grave markers at St Matthew’s church Darley Abbey.
Mill Workers Grave Markers at St Matthews Church
Nottingham Museums: Legacy of Slavery
Through our Learning & Education team, and having been kindly provided with materials by the University of Nottingham, we can now share a series of digital resources that enable everyone to access museums information, teaching aids and activities online.
These resources have been made available to support the teaching of the ‘Nottingham’s Legacies of Slavery’ project, which illuminates and explores the backgrounds of several locally commemorated individuals and prominent places (including Robert Smith, Eric Irons and George Africanus) that are connected to the transatlantic slave economy.
Nottinghamshire History: A Resources for Local Historians and Genealogists
The Nottinghamshire History website makes accessible a wide range of books and articles reflecting the rich and fascinating history of this part of the midlands.
Tony Butler
Dr Susanne Seymour
In Conversation -
Tony Butler and Dr. Susanne Seymour
In this latest ‘In Conversation’ audio interview, Derby Museums’ Executive Director Tony Butler talks with Dr. Susanne Seymour Associate Professor School of Geography and Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Slavery, University of Nottingham. Susanne has conducted extensive research into industrial sites and rural estates in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire and their connections with the slave trade. Much of the raw materials used in the cotton industry in the 18 and 19 th centuries would have been produced in the Americas by enslaved Africans. Susanne talks about the legacy of slavery and reveals how that story is now being retold in museums and heritage sites in our region.
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Dr Susanne Seymour is an Associate Professor in the School of Geography and Deputy Director of the Institute for the Study of Slavery (ISOS) at the University of Nottingham, UK.
She has been researching the historical connections between Britain and transatlantic enslavement since the 1990s, with a particular interest in these ties in rural and provincial Britain. Early research focused on the links between the development of elite British country estates and enslavement, and Susanne was a contributor to Slavery and the British Country House, published by English Heritage in 2013.
Subsequently, she has examined the slavery and colonial connections of the rural and provincial cotton textile industry, particularly that of the Derwent Valley, Derbyshire, through the Global Cotton Connections projects. Recent work seeks to develop stronger, more reflective narratives of British slavery and colonial connections in rural heritage sites through collaborative work with community volunteers of African and African Caribbean (Legacy Makers group) and South Asian descent, and heritage professionals.
Susanne explains “Our past and ongoing work together on enslavement, colonialism and the cotton textile industry in the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site is testament to the value of such collaborations. Reflecting on slavery histories and legacies in my own higher education context, I am also a member of the Working Group examining the links of Nottingham's universities to historical slavery.”
Listen to Episode 5 of the podcast to hear Dr Susanne Seymour discuss Cotton and where did it come from before it entered the industrial mills of the Midlands.
Additional Website Links
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The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.
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The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery has been established at UCL with the generous support of the Hutchins Center at Harvard. The Centre builds on two earlier projects based at UCL tracing the impact of slave-ownership on the formation of modern Britain: the ESRC-funded Legacies of British Slave-ownership project (2009-2012), and the ESRC and AHRC-funded Structure and significance of British Caribbean slave-ownership 1763-1833 (2013-2015).
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The Slave Voyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more.
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Formerly known as the 'International Centre for the History of Slavery' — was established in 1998 by the late Thomas Wiedemann. ISOS now pursues research on historical and contemporary slavery, and forced labour in all parts of the globe and through all periods.
The Institute draws together academic staff, postdoctoral researchers, and postgraduate students from several academic schools within University of Nottingham.
Click the link - https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/isos/index.aspx
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Read through the report commissioned by the University of Nottingham to understand their colonial links to enslavement
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In 2007, to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the British transatlantic slave trade, English Heritage (now separately English Heritage and Historic England) commissioned research into the connections to slavery at English Heritage sites.
This report surveyed 33 properties that were built or occupied during the main period of the British transatlantic slave trade (c.1640–1807). Twenty-six properties with some level of connection to slavery or abolition were identified.
Further research was subsequently carried out into four of the sites with the strongest connections to the slave trade. Click below to read the reports.
Click the link - https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/research/slavery/?utm_