Unique slave trade documents acquired by Museum in Docklands

12 December 2006

Ahead of opening London’s first dedicated slave trade gallery next autumn, Museum in Docklands has acquired a significant and extremely rare archive of 18th century papers which illustrate London’s central and often overlooked role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The Mills papers were the working papers of Thomas Mills and his son, John Mills, West India Merchants and Plantation owners, and cover the period 1752-1771, and 1776-1777.

Particularly affecting is a plantation journal of 1776-1777, which details the daily work undertaken by “negroes” on the Mills’ estates. This work book will be on temporary display for the first time ever at Museum in Docklands from Tuesday 12 December to Friday 22 December 2006.

Next autumn, during the bicentenary of the abolition of the Transatlantic slave trade, Museum in Docklands will open the only dedicated permanent gallery looking at the trade which connects London with West Africa and the Caribbean.

The gallery is being developed in partnership with local communities and with the help of a consultative committee including many specialists in black history. It is intended that the gallery will show how this triangular connection shaped London since the 18th century, and will explore how its effects still resonate through the capital today. The Mills papers are expected to be an important resource informing this new gallery’s  development.

David Spence, director of Museum in Docklands says: “The acquisition of the Mills papers is the most significant addition to the Museum in Docklands’ collection since it opened in 2003 and provides a window into London’s history as a slave port. This is not a history that has been widely told, and yet it is vital to the understanding and appreciation of London’s identity today.”

These documents will shed light on the economic importance of the slave trade to London and include letter books, inventories and invoice sheets relate to sugar plantations in St Kitts and Nevis operated by the Mills family. As a former sugar warehouse, No 1 West India Quay, the building which houses Museum in Docklands, is one of the most significant surviving structures in Britain integral to the lucrative commercial operations of the slave trade.

Burt Caesar, actor, director, and member of the Museum’s consultative committee developing the new gallery, says:   "For all British citizens of West Indian origin the Mills papers are vital documents in the often hidden or ‘lost’ history of slavery in the islands. As someone born in St Kitts, and now living in London, these papers are even more important. On a personal level, there may be a direct family connection : a ‘Caesar’ is listed in the Mills papers. And on the grander scale of historical legacy, they provide further evidence of the long established link between the West Indies and England. My fellow Kittitians and I are descended from survivors of one side of a brutal and profitable trade which always had London at its centre."

The book lists the names given by plantation managers to enslaved Africans forced to work the sugar plantations, and records their age, employment and “condition”, along with minutiae of their treatment, rations and allowances. It also calculates the daily quantities of “sugar”, “rum” and “melasses” made.

The book offers a ledger account of both the chain of production and the grim human cost of bringing sugar, and vast profits, to London. A small chit taped to the inside cover records the compensation presented by the British government on the abolition of slavery in 1834: a sum of just over £872, paid not to the enslaved Africans, but to Mills, as remuneration.

For further information, and images please contact Tim Morley in the Museum in Docklands press office on 020 7814 5607 or tmorley@musuemindocklands.org.uk.

Notes to editors

1. Museum in Docklands is housed at No. 1 Warehouse, West India Quay. It is a unique historic structure that stands testament not only to a chapter in the development of British history but also to the history of the African diaspora. 
2. The new gallery, London and Slavery gallery and accompanying projects are expected to cost around £650,000. The Museum has applied for a Heritage Lottery Fund grant to support this.
3. London was a major slave trading port for more than 200 years. Just in the short time between the opening of the West India Dock in 1802 and the British government’s abolition of the slave trade in 1807, it is estimated that 77 ships sailed from the Dock to West Africa where they purchased 24,962 enslaved Africans who were transported to the Americas and sold to work on the plantations. Of this number a recorded 3,136 did not survive the journey. The ships returned to the docks with their cargo of sugar. This represents just a fraction of London’s slave trade business.  It is accepted today that surviving records do not reflect the true magnitude of the trade.
4. It is the Museum’s intention during 2007 to digitize the papers and make them publicly accessible on line.
5. Museum in Docklands explores London's connections with the world through the 2000 year history of the river, port and people. Across four floors of interactive displays the Museum’s unique collection takes you on a journey through stories of the Thames and surrounding areas from Roman settlement to 21st century urban regeneration. A changing programme of activities caters for visitors of all ages and includes gallery tours, storytelling, drama, talks by historians, films and guided walks through Docklands. The Museum opened in 2003 and is a short walk along West India Quay from the Docklands Light Railway or ten minutes from Canary Wharf underground station on the Jubilee Line.