Black Networking Group

The International Slavery Museum explores both the historical and contemporary aspects of slavery, addressing the many legacies of the slave trade and telling stories of bravery and rebellion amongst the enslaved people. These are stories which have been largely untold. For more than 2,000 years people in many different parts of the world have forced [...]

BLACK CULTURAL ARCHIVES and MIDDLESEX UNIVERSITY have together created a new organisation – the ARCHIVES and MUSEUM of BLACK HERITAGE (AMBH). With funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, AMBH has embarked on a major programme of outreach and education, cataloguing, research and exhibitions relating to the history of the black diaspora presence in Britain.   [...]

Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), also known as Gustavus Vassa, was one of the most prominent people of African heritage (Igbo) involved in the British debate for the abolition of the slave trade. His autobiography depicted the horrors of slavery and helped influence British lawmakers to abolish the slave trade through the [...]

Consort of George III and Queen Victoria’s grandmother Queen Charlotte, wife of the English King George III (1738-1820), was directly descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a black branch of the Portuguese Royal House. The riddle of Queen Charlotte’s African ancestry was solved as a result of an earlier investigation into the black magi [...]

  Ottobah Cugoano was born in Africa in about 1757. As a child he was kidnapped and sold as a slave to plantation owners in Grenada. He remained in the West Indies until purchased by an English merchant. He was taken to England in 1772 where he was set free. Later he entered the service [...]

 Born in Guinea on West Coast of Africa – Buried in Kenwyn Church, Truro Extract from Dr. Richard McGrady’s ‘An African in Cornwall’,  (Musical Times, November 1986).   With thanks to The Hidden Routes, An African in Cornwall, compiled by Galena Chester  Time has drawn a kindly veil over many composers. But there are a few [...]

England’s first slave trader who was Mayor of Plymouth Johns’ father, William Hawkins senior, was one of the five richest men in Plymouth in 1543. He was worth £150 a year (to get a sense of scale bear in mind that the towns total income in that year was £63). Another fact:- during that year [...]