Slavery past and present Shaping understanding of historic and modern slavery through research 1 Cover image: “Combatting Human Trafficking,” mural by survivors of slavery in West Bengal, India, 2016, from the AHRC Antislavery Usable Past project, courtesy of Joel Bergner and local partners. 2 Contents Introduction 4 Definitions of slavery 6 Historical slavery and its present-day legacies 8 Slavery, child labour, and trafficking in modern history 14 Mobilising against modern slavery 18 3 Introduction Modern slavery exists in a “continuum with the slavery of the past: recognition of the shared heritage of slavery that has shaped the modern world challenges us to“ acknowledge – and act against – the continuation of slavery today. 4 It is estimated that there are 46 modern campaigners have successfully million slaves alive today and ending drawn for both empowering inspiration slavery by 2030 is one of the UN’s and practical strategy. Modern slavery Sustainable Development Goals. exists in a continuum with the slavery We are now in the midst of history’s of the past: recognition of the shared fourth great anti-slavery movement heritage of slavery that has shaped and Arts and Humanities Research the modern world challenges us to Council (AHRC)-funded research is acknowledge – and act against – the changing the debate around slavery continuation of slavery today. AHRC past and present. In this leaflet researchers have produced outstanding we highlight how the Arts and work that analyses how we remember Humanities can provide tools with and acknowledge the institution of slavery which to address the problem of that shaped the emergence of modern slavery in the present and to come to British society and our relations with the terms with its legacy from the past. wider world. The impact of their work reaches far beyond academia and has Researchers from influenced policy makers from the UN to our community have provided the AHRC researchers have produced legal definitions outstanding work that analyses“ how we of slavery that are “ used in international remember, interpret and acknowledge courts of law and the institution of slavery NGOs across the globe. Their work has also highlighted the ambiguity of the the British Government; it has informed language that we use, which allows award-winning television programmes; trafficking and forced labour to be it has provided the basis for hugely hidden in plain sight. Historians who successful Massive Online Open Courses have studied the longer term histories of (MOOC) and lesson plans in schools. slavery and forced labour have revealed Slavery as an institution has always startling continuities in the patterns of been predicated upon the movement of employment and the experiences of peoples across countries and continents labourers across centuries and continents .The modern anti-slavery movement which the anti-slavery movement has yet is similarly a global network and this is to address. But the history of anti-slavery reflected in the international frameworks movements and abolitionism is also a of research, advocacy and engagement powerful tool in itself – it is a ‘usable’ that our funding has supported. past that is a resource upon which 5 Definitions of slavery 6 Definitions of slavery have been the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 and heavily contested in modern times. are informing anti-slavery campaigners From indentured labour to forced across the globe, including Anti-Slavery marriage, slavery takes many different International, the world’s oldest human forms and encompasses different rights organisation, Free the Slaves, communities and people. A definition the leading US-based anti-slavery of slavery must be flexible enough to organisation, and Walk Free, which include various forms of exploitation, seeks the eradication of slavery in our but be precise enough to be used lifetime and has produced the annual and referenced in a court of law. The Global Slavery Index. This index which Bellagio-Harvard Guidelines on the estimates the prevalence of slavery Legal Parameters of Slavery, which across 167 countries is intended to be are now used worldwide for courts by used by NGOs, businesses and public NGOs and charitable organisations, officials to help develop policies which were drawn up as the key output of aim to end modern slavery. The lead an AHRC-funded networking project, author is Professor Kevin Bales, Principle Slavery as the Powers Attaching Investigator on the AHRC Antislavery to the Right of Ownership, led Usable Past grant (2014-2019). by Professor Jean Allain of Queen’s The Bellagio-Harvard guidelines will also University Belfast. This network brought inform decisions regarding the allocation together academics and anti-slavery of the Global Fund to End Modern leaders to establish a decisive legal Slavery which has commitments of definition of slavery, which could be over $2 billion to be used to aid used in courts of law and as a central anti-slavery groups, and to support reference point in international law for governments and activists in defeating the first time. These guidelines were modern-day slavery. also vital in informing the drafting of 7 Historical slavery and its present-day legacies 8 Historical slavery and The historical institution of slavery teaching tool in schools and universities. has left an indelible impact upon The Centre for the Study of the Legacies modern society and the question of how of British Slave Ownership at UCL, which we acknowledge its past, remember was established as a result of these AHRC its present-day legacies its history and communicate that and ESRC projects, continues to initiate understanding to a wider public remains and inform much wider discussion of a fundamental challenge. AHRC- the true legacy of slave ownership in funded researchers have approached shaping society today, both regionally the legacy of historical slavery – rather and nationally. than simply the history of slavery – in innovative ways that have made a vital Its findings have underpinned the work contribution to public debate. of several National Commissions in the Caribbean and have been adopted by The In 2015 the AHRC-funded project Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to aid The Structure and Significance of government negotiations over Britain’s British Caribbean Slave-Ownership colonial slave past. 1763-1833 provided the basis for the BAFTA winning BBC TV series Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners presented by historian David Olusoga and watched by 1.6 million viewers. This project, led by Professor Catherine Hall of University College London, which also drew on research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 2009, showed how the profits from Caribbean slave ownership were spread throughout British society and economy during this critical period in the development of modern Britain. At the core of the project is a publicly accessible database of 46,000 compensation claims made by slave owners following the Emancipation Act of 1834, which itself was named History Today’s Digital History Project of 2015 Presenter and Historian David Olusoga working on the BAFTA award winning BBC series ‘Britain’s and has since become a widely-used Forgotten Slave Owners’ 9 Susanne Seymour of the University of professionals, BAME community groups Nottingham led three AHRC Connected and academics to install community- Communities projects examining led exhibition materials on slavery the historical impacts of slavery and and colonialism at Cromford Mills, colonialism on the British countryside. Derbyshire, and the poem-based film, Historicising and Reconnecting Rural Blood Sugar, addressing slavery at Community: Black Presences and the Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism in Rural Britain, c. 1600-1939 In Bristol, a former hub of the Atlantic unpacked the conventional image of the Slave Trade, archaeologists, writers countryside and ideas of (white) British and literary scholars were brought identity through a review of published together by Dr Josie Gill of the University literature and heritage initiatives and the of Bristol, to develop new ways of identification of new archival materials. understanding what it would have been Global Cotton Connections addressed like to have been enslaved between key gaps in the slavery and colonial the 16th and 19th centuries. The aim history of Britain’s rural cotton industry of Literary Archaeology: Exploring and current strategies to represent this, the Lived Environment of the Slave through archival research and working was to enhance public understanding of collaboratively with Nottingham Slave slavery as well as exploring the potential Trade Legacies and Sheffield South Asian of innovative inter-disciplinary working heritage groups in the Derwent Valley between archaeological science and Mills World Heritage Site. Practising literary studies. Public events have Reparative Histories in Rural Heritage been successful in making audiences Sites was a collaboration between question how knowledge about slavery cotton mill and country house heritage is produced and to think about what is needed to re-write the history of slavery in a way that acknowledges the experiences of the slave. Creative writers used archaeological evidence to create stories of the lives and experiences of slaves which have also been incorporated into the audio guide for the Georgian Copyright Susanne Seymour.a House Museum in Bristol. Dr Shawn Naphtali Sobers, University of the West of England, filming ‘Blood Sugar’ with the Nottingham Slave Trade Legacies volunteers and poet Michelle ‘Mother’ Hubbard at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, in January 2018. 10 Recognition should be given to the Lives, that introduces children to the work of anti-slavery campaigns and complexity, life experiences and scale of movements in the past which paved the slavery past and present through songs way for modern antislavery movements, and lesson plans. The research team particularly charities, governments working on this project also provided and NGOs who are similarly looking text and expertise to the British Council to eradicate the practice of enslaving/ in the preparation of a new permanent trafficking/labour enforcing, today.