Madge Dresser

Slavery Obscured aims to assess how the slave trade affected the social life and cultural outlook of the citizens of a major English city, and contends that its impact was more profound than has previously been acknowledged. Based on original research in archives in Britain and America, this title builds on scholarship in the economic history of the slave trade to ask questions about the way slave-derived wealth underpinned the city of Bristol’s urban development and its growing gentility. How much did Bristol’s Georgian renaissance owe to such wealth? Who were the major players and beneficiaries of the African and West Indian trades? How, in an ever-changing historical environment, were enslaved Africans represented in the city’s press, theatre and political discourse? What do previously unexplored religious, legal and private records tell us about the black presence in Bristol or about the attitudes of white seamen, colonists and merchants towards slavery and race? What role did white women and artisans play in Bristol’s anti-slavery movement? Combining a historical and anthropological approach, Slavery Obscured, seeks to shed new light on the contradictory and complex history of an English slaving port and to prompt new ways of looking at British national identity, race and history.

Slave Trader Families

Throughout much of its history, Bristol has been one of England's most important ports; on the very edge of England it looks out towards Wales, Ireland, to the Atlantic and beyond. Those who have made Bristol their home range from medieval Jews to modern asylum seekers. Well before the post-war arrival of people of Caribbean and South Asian origin, the city played host to Welsh, Irish and Scottish incomers as well as to Germans, Italians, Africans, Indians and others. Beginning at the start of the 11th century, and ending in the 21st, Bristol: Ethnic Minorities and the City, 1000-2001 offers new insights into the experiences of foreigners who came to cosmopolitan Bristol. This pioneering study seeks to bear witness to their many stories and begins to piece together how these migrants have affected the city's own sense of itself. Full of archival and visual material, and interviews with Bristolians themselves, the book marks a new departure in local history. It is the first time that immigration and ethnic minorities have been explored in such depth over the entire recorded history of a single city. This story may span 1001 years rather than 1001 nights, but like Scheherazade, the authors intrigue their audience into wanting to know more.