Western Australian Legacies of British Slavery

A very important party of the work of LBS is collaborating with others, both within Britain and internationally, to research the legacies of enslavement and slave-ownership. One such project is Western Australian Legacies of British Slavery.

This project examines the importance of the legacy of British slavery for the colonisation of Western Australia. The research into Western Australian colonists and their networks aims to trace the movement of people, goods, capital, and practices from the Caribbean to the newly-established colony of Western Australia.

The project is working in collaboration with LBS, the National Centre of Biography and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

The research team is very active in producing articles, holding seminars and taking part in broadcast interviews on their work.

Jane Lydon, 'A Secret Longing for a Trade in Human Flesh: the Decline of British Slavery and the Making of the Settler Colonies', History Workshop Journal, 90 (2020), pp. 189–210 and a companion piece, 'Slavery and Australian colonisation', provide the context for the project.

For more on the project go to Western Australian Legacies of British Slavery.

See also the related blog on James Stirling (1791-1865), enslavement and Western Australia by Georgina Arnott, a member of the Western Australia project team.