Sheffield and Slavery

Sheffield and slavery report

What were the connections between Sheffield and the enslavement of African peoples in the Atlantic world? This report summarises and details some of the linkages between the local region and slavery in the Americas.

Sheffield’s connections to the Atlantic economy are both deep-rooted and long-lasting, stretching back to the middle decades of the seventeenth century.

Frederick Douglass in Sheffield

Dan Greenwood explores the renowned abolitionist’s visits to the city.

About

‘Sheffield, Slavery, and its Legacies’ is a knowledge exchange project based in the Department of History at the University of Sheffield.

Washford Bridge, Attercliffe – the site of one of a number of ‘sugar houses’ in the city. PictureSheffield.com, ref: s07534.

Header images, from left to right:

Moses Roper, one of many formerly enslaved African American abolitionists who visited Sheffield during the nineteenth century, as depicted in his Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery (1838); African Americans planting sweet potatoes on Edisto Island, South Carolina, during the American Civil War, LOT14024, no.102, Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs, Library of Congress; Advertisement for Frederick Stones, who manufactured plantation tools among other things at Albion Works, Arundel Lane, Sheffield, in the nineteenth century. The Sheffield Directory and Guide (1828).