British Universities and Caribbean Slavery

摘要

British cultural and educational institutions universities have, in some cases, begun to tackle their past entanglements with slavery and with the wider history of colonialism; most, however, remain in a reactive mode and confine their engagements with their problematic pasts to responding to specific stimuli, often generated from outside the academic sector altogether. A.t the same time, existing and indeed new material celebrating institutional histories, benefactors or individual scholars continues to elide difficult truths. This article uses the work of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project at University College London (UCL) to highlight some specific connections between British universities and the slave economy and propose a research program by universities into their ties to slavery, organized in four parts to cover different relevant populations: the founders and benefactors, the universities themselves, the faculty or academic staff, and the students. Only through such work, the article argues, can universities fulfill their responsibilities to themselves and others.