Key facts
- Sandbach, Tinne and Company illegally trafficked enslaved Africans to Guyana in 1847.
- The company was closely linked to merchants who received large taxpayer-funded compensation after abolition.
- An 1847 letter from Peter Miller Watson to Sandbach Tinne's Liverpool office described a ship carrying 'cargo of negroes'.
- The ship 'the Parker' transported 115 adult males, 86 adult females, 82 children under 14, and 41 under 4.
- Author Malik Al Nasir argues the individuals were illegally trafficked from Africa, not liberated or indentured.
- The research is part of a new project called Overwriting-Underwriting, investigating financial networks behind enslavement.
New research has uncovered evidence suggesting that a British corporation, Sandbach, Tinne and Company, continued to illegally traffic enslaved Africans to Guyana decades after Britain had abolished the slave trade and slavery itself. The findings, detailed in Malik Al Nasir's book 'Searching for My Slave Roots', have spurred a new research initiative called Overwriting-Underwriting, focused on uncovering the financial networks behind enslavement.
An 1847 letter written by Peter Miller Watson, who managed the company's interests in Demerara, Guyana, refers to a ship from the company's fleet, 'the Parker', arriving with a 'cargo of negroes'. The letter specified the ship carried 115 adult males, 86 adult females, 82 children under 14, and 41 children under 4, with only three casualties during the passage. Al Nasir argues that Watson's description of the people as 'cargo' and their 'wretched state' ashore indicates they were illegally trafficked from Africa, rather than being liberated Africans or indentured labourers.
Sandbach Tinne and Company was closely associated with powerful merchant families, including the Gladstones, who dominated the Demerara sugar trade. These families had received substantial taxpayer-funded compensation for the 'loss' of enslaved people following the abolition of slavery. John Gladstone, father of Prime Minister William Gladstone, received the largest individual payout, while Sandbach Tinne received the second largest aggregate compensation. The company itself was eventually wound up in 1975.
The Overwriting-Underwriting project, launching this month at the Museum of Liverpool, aims to shed further light on these historical financial networks. The initiative is inspired by research into John Gladstone's insurance records and Al Nasir's work on Sandbach Tinne. Descendants of both the Sandbach and Gladstone families have issued apologies for their ancestors' involvement in slavery.