Trade Expansion

1600-1800

City and River

1800-1840

London, Sugar & Slavery

1600 – today

Discover how the trade in enslaved Africans and sugar shaped London

The museum’s building is central to this story. It was built at the time of the transatlantic slave trade, to store the sugar from the West Indian plantations where enslaved men, women and children worked.

Not to be missed on your visit

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Painting May Morning by John Collet, showing a traditional London parade in the 1780s.

May Morning, by John Collet c. 1770

Find this painting showing a black servant joining in a traditional London festival in the 1770s, at the same time as the slave trade was in full swing.

Young visitors to the Museum of London Docklands view the names of slave ships that sailed from London.

See the slave ships that set sail from London

See the names, captains, owners and destinations of the ships that sailed from London to trade in enslaved Africans - whose names were not been recorded.

The interesting life of Ignatius Sancho, book published in London 19th century.

Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho, an African, 1782

Ignatius Sancho was born on a slave ship in the mid-Atlantic and brought to England at the age of two. His best-selling book was the first prose published in Britain by an African author.

Loaf of sugar and mold used to produce it.

Sugar mold and loaf

The slave plantations of the Caribbean were driven by Britain's craving for sugar. In London the processed sugar was made into sugar loaves using molds like these.

The business of slavery

Read the Mills Plantation Archive, books and letters of the London slave-owning Mills family- including a strange correspondence with an enslaved man named "Pembroke".

Machete

This large knife was made in Birmingham, England. Tools like these were used on slave plantations in the West Indies, and traded for enslaved Africans.

Sugar bowl with an abolitionist design depicting a pleading enslaved African.

Anti-slavery sugar bowl

This sugar bowl is hand painted with a pleading African slave. Campaigners for the abolition of slavery wanted to remind British people of the slaves who produced their sugar.

Three children watch a sound and light show in the Sugar and Slavery gallery at the Museum of London Docklands.

See and hear the stories of the enslaved

An immersive sound and light show plays in the gallery every fifteen minutes, exploring the lives of some of the people bound up in the slave trade.

Fighting for freedom

Explore the efforts of those who fought to end slavery, from Caribbean revolutionaries to British campaigners. This table was owned by abolitionist MP Thomas Buxton.

Diagram of a slave ship on display in the London Sugar and Slavery gallery.

The Liverpool slave ship Brookes

This infamous diagram shows how enslaved Africans were packed into ships to cross the Atlantic. 609 men, women & children were carried in terrible squalor aboard this slaver.

London, Sugar and Slavery also of interest

Fighting for Empire

A new display exploring a history of heroism, slavery and the first black soldier to win the Victoria Cross.

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Take a free tour

Free tours through the highlights of each gallery run daily.

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Primary pupils stand in front of a display about slavery on a visit to the Museum of London Docklands

Bring the kids

Extensive free resources for families visiting the gallery.

Families page

Discover London Through History

London's street life across the centuries

Snapshot interview: Lewis Bush and Metropole

Snapshot interview: Will Eckersley's Dark City