Contents

International Slavery Museum

International Slavery Museum

Main entrance to the museum
Established	23 August 2007
Location	Albert Dock, Liverpool, England, United Kingdom
Coordinates	53°24′04″N 2°59′35″W / 53.401°N 2.993°W / 53.401; -2.993
Type	Slavery
Visitors	396,877 (2019)[1]
Website	International Slavery Museum

The International Slavery Museum is a museum located in Liverpool, UK, that focuses on the history and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. The museum, which forms part of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, consists of three main galleries which focus on the lives of people in West Africa, their eventual enslavement, and their continued fight for freedom. Additionally the museum discusses slavery in the modern day as well as topics on racism and discrimination.^[2]

History[edit]

Originally part of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, which opened in 1980, the history of the slave trade was originally discussed as part of the city's maritime history shortly before a dedicated Transatlantic Slavery gallery was created in 1994 to better explore Liverpool's historic role in the slave trade.^[3] Notable among campaigners for the establishment of an international slavery museum in 1992 was Dorothy Kuya.^[4] By the early 2000s international interest in the exhibition and a high volume of visitors led to the decision for a museum specially dedicated to the history of slavery to be set up so as to better explain slavery and its legacy.

The new museum opened on 23 August 2007, the date of the annual International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition marking the beginning of the slave uprising in Saint-Domingue. The year 2007 was particularly significant as it was the bicentenary of the United Kingdom's Slave Trade Act of 1807, which abolished the slave trade (though not slavery itself) inside the British Empire. The Merseyside Maritime Museum used to house a Transatlantic Slavery Gallery. Phase 1 of the International Slavery Museum involved relocating current exhibitions to the third floor of the museum and adding new displays, which doubled the space dedicated to the subject.

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Forced labour and slavery
Contemporary Child Labour Child soldiers Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Contemporary Africa 21st-century jihadism Sexual slavery Wage slavery
Historical Antiquity Egypt Babylonia Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Genoese slave trade Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in al-Andalus ‎ Baqt Contract of manumission Bukhara slave trade Crimean slave trade Khazar slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Pazarları Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid imperial harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm al-walad Circassian slave trade Saqaliba Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Volga Bulgarian slave trade 21st century Atlantic slave trade Bristol Brazil Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Conscription Ghilman Mamluk Devshirme Blackbirding Coolie Corvée labour Field slaves in the United States Treatment House slaves Saqaliba Slave market Slave raiding Child soldiers White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas indigenous U.S. Natives United States Field slaves female Contemporary maps partus prison labour Slave codes Treatment interregional Human trafficking The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan Brunei China Booi Aha Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Indonesia Japan comfort women Korea Kwalliso Malaysia Maldives Slavery in the Mongol Empire Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe United Kingdom Penal Labour Slavery Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith
Opposition and resistance Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90 Temporary Slavery Commission 1926 Slavery Convention Committee of Experts on Slavery Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman Manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]
Related Common law Indentured servitude Forced labour Fugitive slaves laws convention Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery Slave marriages in the United States Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day
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New displays incorporate the latest historical research but also cover wider issues of the legacy of transatlantic slavery, and its contemporary relevance. Topics such as freedom and identity, social justice and human rights, underdevelopment in Africa and the Caribbean, racial discrimination and injustice and the transformation of European, African and American cultures as a result of slavery.

The East Gallery features approximately 400 annotated songs pertaining to the experience of slavery and the music of Africa and the slave-descended African diaspora.^[5]

National Museums Liverpool say the new gallery focuses on the experience of individuals, using the narratives of enslaved and those involved in the trade. They include a shrine to the ancestors of the enslaved as a quiet area for contemplation and reflection.

The second phase planned is the development of a new visitor-focused resource centre with an events programme of performance, public lectures and debate. The centre will have a research facility for visiting scholars to work and access to National Museums Liverpool's archive collections. A digital archive of material related to the transatlantic slave trade will be available.

To enable phase two of the project National Museums Liverpool has acquired the former Dock Traffic Office, which adjoins the Maritime Museum. The two buildings are to be linked. The Dock Traffic building was formerly occupied by ITV's Granada Television.

The museum was awarded £50,000 in March 2018 to buy and restore the painting 'Am Not I A Man and a Brother'. The painting dates from around 1800 and is based upon a design commissioned by the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The image is considered to be one of the first instances of a logo designed for a political cause, and was used on the pottery of Josiah Wedgwood.^[6]

In 2023, Michelle Charters was announced as the new Head of the museum.^[7]

Exhibitions[edit]

There is a section about life and culture in West Africa before the transatlantic slave trade, the history of slavery and also displays and special exhibitions about the legacies of slavery and current human rights issues.

See also[edit]

• Slavery museum (France)
• Whitney Plantation Historic District (US)
• Barbary slave trade

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Daniel Brown, "Songs of Slavery", Index on Censorship, Volume 36, Number 1, 2007, p. 138–140.

External links[edit]

• Official website
• National Museums Liverpool
• Sculpture marks abolition of slave trade anniversary
• Guardian article on the opening of phase 1