What is the Register of British Slave Traders and whom does it identify?

A composite of archival material relating to Britain’s involvement in transatlantic slavery. From left: Sir John Hawkins, English naval commander and administrator and slave trader, his face overlaid with a ledger recording enslavers and cotton suppliers and their links to English investors; an account of sums awarded by the Commissioners of Slave Compensation, Parliamentary Papers 1837-38; and a photograph of enslaved African Americans in a cotton field in South Carolina, 1863-66. © Senate House Library Composite: Guardian/Diana Ejaita/© Senate House Library

The Register of British Slave Traders is the product of three years of research by a team of historians into all known investors in Britain’s near 250 years of trafficking enslaved African people, from the 16th to 19th centuries.

It provides profiles and biographical details of thousands of people who financed the British slave trade, which violently trafficked approximately 3 million African men, women and children across the Atlantic.