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In this powerful history of the University of Cambridge, Nicolas Bell-Romero considers the nature and extent of Britain's connections to enslavement. His research moves beyond traditional approaches which focus on direct and indirect economic ties to enslavement or on the slave trading hubs of Liverpool and Bristol. From the beginnings of North American colonisation to the end of the American Civil War, the story of Cambridge reveals the vast spectrum of interconnections that university students, alumni, fellows, professors, and benefactors had to Britain's Atlantic slave empire - in dining halls, debating chambers, scientific societies or lobby groups. Following the stories of these middling and elite men as they became influential agents around the empire, Bell-Romero uncovers the extent to which the problem of slavery was an inextricable feature of social, economic, cultural, and intellectual life. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. 'The principal ingredient necessary to form a good planter': education and the making of a transatlantic elite; 2. 'The Highe Priest hath banished you forth': missionary protestantism and the origins of the British empire; 3. 'The glory of their times': natural philosophy, the law, and the spoils of empire; 4. 'Several university gentlemen, who have quite altered their tone': the problem of the British slave trade; 5. 'Those who wish to see the slave system decline, and at length gradually and safely': the ambitions of Cambridge abolitionism; 6. 'We presume that its influence is nowhere greater than in the universities': ending and defending American slavery; Conclusion; Appendix 1. Cambridge families and the transatlantic economy.
About the author
Nicolas Bell-Romero is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the Tulane History Project at Tulane University in New Orleans. From 2020 to 2023, he was one of the two lead researchers for the University of Cambridge's Legacies of Enslavement Inquiry.
