Resource : Description of a Slave Ship

Transatlantic slavery was a brutal system which forcibly shipped over twelve million Africans to the Americas and lasted over 300 years. It allowed African men, women and children to be stolen from their homeland, bought and sold as property and used to produce sugar, coffee, cotton and other goods for huge profit in the European and North American markets. This print was made to highlight the inhumane conditions under which enslaved Africans were transported across the Atlantic Ocean, forced to make the long voyage from West Africa to the Americas, tightly packed into the hold of ships and held in chains.

Resource : Poster advertising the Chartists’ Demonstration on Kennington Common, 1848

The Chartists were members of a national and generally peaceful protest movement who campaigned between 1838 and 1857 for political reform and representation of working class people. It was the first British mass movement to be driven by the working classes. The development of the industrial printing press helped spread the word and gather support for peaceful protests. The Chartists’ ‘demands’ still underpin British democracy today.