London's Role in the Slave Trade

by Dr. Jessie Voigts /
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Feb 08, 2014 / 0 comments

Context, organizer of critically acclaimed walking tours, expands its program in London with a walking seminar on the slave trade. From Empire to Emancipation, London's Role in the Slave Trade, offers travelers an insight into the country's imperial past, its commercial development, and how this was closely connected to the slave trade.

 

London's Role in the Slave Trade

 

As with all Context walking seminars, the tour was designed in collaboration with the company’s extensive network of scholars and experts.

“This tour is unique in the way it digs deep in one of the most controversial periods of British history” says professor Tim Hochstrasser, Context docent. “The discussion ranges from trade and empire in the first section of the walk and then focuses more on abolition and life on the plantations during the second part of it. ”

 

London's Role in the Slave Trade

 

Center of economic trade and imperialistic expansion, London had a fundamental role both as a perpetrator of human trafficking as well as a leader in the abolition movement. This tour looks at the historical, social and economic story of this delicate process and change in Britain's position between the 18th and the 19th centuries.

The walk also looks more broadly at British imperialism and analyzes the causes and socioeconomic conditions that led the British empire to become the largest known to man, and how these are closely connected to the slave trade. Led by historians and urbanism scholars, the tour encompasses a number of central locations before veering off the beaten path to the docklands and the West India Quay.

 

London's Role in the Slave Trade

 

From Empire to Emancipation lasts three hours and is available daily. Group walks cost £70 per person. Private tours cost £270 per party. As with all Context walking seminars, groups are led by a credentialed expert and limited to six (6) people maximum.

 

Founded by National Geographic writer Paul Bennett and designer Lani Bevacqua, Context Travel is a network of English-speaking scholars and professionals, including art historians, writers, architects and gastronomes, who organize and lead “walking seminars” in twenty-one world cities, including: Florence, Rome, Venice, Naples, Paris, London, Edinburgh, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Istanbul, Athens, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo and Kyoto.

A certified B Corporation, Context was named one of the fastest growing American companies in 2011 and 2012 by Inc Magazine. Travel + Leisure has called Context one of the top European tour companies for its innovative approach to travel and the depth of its programs. To learn more about Context, visit: www.contexttravel.com

 

All photos courtesy and copyright Context Travel