Abolitionist, Quaker, Sailor, Dwarf and Revolutionary – Becoming Benjamin Lay

Benjamin Lay (1682-1759) was a Quaker abolitionist (and dwarf) and one of the first people to demand the immediate emancipation of enslaved people worldwide. Scorned in his own day and since for his radicalism, he was until recently almost completely unknown among historians and the general public. Becoming Benjamin Lay, directed by Tony Buba, asks, what can Lay’s life tell us about living with courage and conviction in dark times? We are delighted to have historian and writer Marcus Rediker […]

Nicotiana Brittanica – tobacco and forced labour

  England, tobacco and forced labour Roger Ball will outline the symbiotic relationship between the colonisation of the Americas in the seventeenth Century and the production of tobacco as a commodity. The talk will consider the economic mechanisms that encouraged the expansion of landholdings and the introduction of forced labour, leading to the domination of chattel slavery based upon the use of enslaved West Africans. Nicotiana Brittanica Will Simpson tells the story of the illicit […]