Archives shedding light on slavery

I just finished Adam Hochschild's excellent book Bury the Chains yesterday. It is the story of how abolitionists built the movement that ended the slave trade in Great Britain and eventually brought slavery to an end within the empire. In many ways it is a great print culture story about how the systematic collection and distribution of information was able to convince the British people to pressure their government to end the abuses of slavery. This was at a time when common people where every poorly represented as well, yet hundreds of thousands contributed their signatures to some of the largest petition drives the empire ever saw.

What made this book all the more interesting was a story I came across in the Financial Times yesterday while waiting in the Frankfurt Airport. "Rothschild and Freshfields Founders Linked to Slavery," was about how archival documents have begun to uncover how pervasive slavery was within the British economy. Nathan Mayer Rothschild was, until now, perceived as a total opponent of slavery who was an important figure in making the abolition of slavery happen by assisting the British government in buying out slaveholders. It turns out that one of the people who received bailout money was Rothschild himself. He received title to slaves that were used as collateral in one of his bank dealings.