Slavery in the Cabinet of Curiosities:
Hans Sloane's Atlantic World
A noose, a whip and bullets used by rebel African slaves against
their would-be Caribbean masters, were among the objects collected
by Sir Hans Sloane. His collection led to the foundation of the
British Museum in 1753.
Sunday 25 March 2007 is the 200th anniversary of the Abolition
of 
the Slave Trade Act,
which outlawed the slave trade throughout the British Empire, made
it illegal for British ships to be involved in it and marked the
beginning of the end of the transatlantic traffic in human beings.
As part of Atlantic Trade and Identity - a season of events and
exhibitions organised to mark the anniversary - the British Museum
is exploring Sloane’s connections with the slave trade.
Slavery in the Cabinet of Curiosities: Hans Sloane’s
Atlantic World, an essay by James
Delbourgo, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at
McGillUniversity, Montreal, is available to download.
Download essay in pdf format
(225k)
Sloane began collecting in the late 1600s
when he travelled to Jamaica as personal physician to the new
governor, the Duke of Albermarle.
Delbourgo’s essay looks at why Sloane collected
objects associated with slavery and what it meant to display them
before the era of abolitionism. It aims to reveal how the
experiences of enslaved Africans were often made public as a matter
of curiosity, rather than out of moral concern or as evidence
supporting scientific racism. In doing so, the essay investigates
the relationship between collecting, slavery and empire across the
Atlantic during the eighteenth century.
Image: Portrait of
Sir Hans Sloane, 1729. John Faber after Sir Godfrey Kneller,
Mezzotint, Bequeathed by William Meriton Eaton, 2nd Baron
Cheylesmore, PD 1902,1011.1876