NEC - Transatlantic Slave Trade workshop

NEC - Transatlantic Slave Trade workshop

I attended this workshop at the National Education Conference

There are few memorials to the history of the transatlantic slave trade in the UK despite the fact that Britain was engaged in it for over 200 years. Many of the stately homes which thousands of people visit each year were founded on the wealth of the slave trade and yet their owners seem coy about this.

This short workshop did a lot to address misconceptions about the transatlantic slave trade including the odd notion which many children have that the only opponents of the slave trade were white men like Wilberforce. Olaudah Equiano and the many slaves and ex slaves who opposed the slave trade and often paid with their lives are largely ignored.

The www.understandingslavery.com website is a gateway to much of the material used in this project and we will be promoting it to WSTA members - not solely history teachers - in the coming year.

Derek McMillan