Were African Slaves Brought to Britian/Europe during the Atlantic Slave Trade?

by [deleted]

[deleted]

crackmethisnut

There were, especially later in the seventeenth century and during the eighteenth century. A primary source that you may find interesting: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, an autobiographical account of someone born in Africa who was enslaved and taken first to the Americas and then to Britain. You can find a copy of it here, at UNC's "Documenting the American South" repository. Equiano's situation was fairly typical of people who had been enslaved and taken to England: they tended to be forced to be the servants to well-off families rather than working en masse in farming or mining situations (simply because those big extractive enterprises were not happening in Britain in the same way they were in colonies).

Another example of this that might be relevant to your question: there has been some very interesting recent scholarship on the enslavement of indigenous people in the Americas, which Spain especially relied on before the empire fully committed to using enslaved African labor. Some of these slaves were shipped back to Spain, and Nancy van Deusen's recent article "Seeing Indios in Sixteenth-Century Castile" in the William and Mary Quarterly in 2012 talks at length about these people and their experiences. It's very good and I recommend it, if you can get a copy.

Hope this helps!