Until very recently, most people in Britain would have said that this country’s most significant involvement in the transatlantic slave trade was our heroic decision to abolish it. In the past few years, this culturally ingrained consensus has been challenged by a renewed attention to Britain’s long-lasting legacy of slavery – and to the many families and institutions that profited from the enslavement of Africans. In the ongoing struggle to determine the meaning of this history, individuals and institutions across Britain’s political spectrum are grappling with the same pivotal question: how do we remember our past?
For the campaigners seeking to build a new monument in Portsmouth commemorating Britain’s West Africa Squadron – the Royal Navy unit tasked with intercepting slave ships after Britain outlawed the trade in 1807 – the answer is simple.
