Atlantic Worlds

"Imagine how an enslaved person would have felt, finding themselves staring down the barrel of a blunderbuss like this one, with their legs in chains, surrounded by hostile sailors and a shark-infested ocean," says author and historian Stella Dadzie. "It would take some courage to plan a mutiny in face of such hopeless odds. Yet amazingly, many captives were prepared to take the risk.

"We now have access to a Transatlantic Voyages database that identifies 485 acts of resistance by captive Africans on slave ships between 1698 and 1807, including 382 cases of shipboard revolt and attacks from the shore," Stella continues. "More than 360 ships – that’s as many as one in ten - experienced some form of violent insurrection. Given what we know about the debilitated condition of the captives on board, these numbers are nothing less than staggering."

Hear more of Stella's responses to the gallery by listening to the 'Freedom Fighters' audio guide.

This is a digitised collage of drawings and water paintings. It explores the resilience and resourcefulness of the African diaspora in response to the colonising project of the British Empire.

The composite artwork builds upon motifs of blood, culture and memory to evoke a chaotic scene of resistance in the Atlantic Ocean's Middle Passage, and contemplates how the ripples of history return to meet us in the future.

The artwork is by Deanio X of BLKBRD Collective. BLKBRD Collective is a team of multidisciplinary artists who create artworks reflecting the traditionally underrepresented legacies of migrant cultures in the UK.

Olaudah Equiano, a key figure in the fight to end the slave trade within the British Empire in the 18th century, once lived just around the corner from what would become the National Maritime Museum.

In his bestselling book, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the African, published in 1789, Equiano described being kidnapped as a child in Benin, and the horrors of the voyage across the Atlantic.

Sold to a Royal Navy captain, Equiano was forced to work on warships, and then on trading ships in the Caribbean. In his early 20s he was able to buy his freedom and came to London. In sharing his own story Equiano became a public figure, and alongside many others played an important role in campaigning for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

John Hawkins was the first English slave trader, who made four voyages to Sierra Leone between 1564 and 1569, taking a total of 1200 Africans across the Atlantic to sell to Spanish settlers in the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.

On his first voyage he described capturing 300 Africans 'by the sword and partly by other means'. In the Caribbean he sold them to the Spanish for 'hides, ginger, sugars, and some quantity of pearls, but he freighted also two other hulks with hides and like commodities'.

"The campaign to abolish slavery was long and protracted. Traditionally associated with the efforts of men like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, it is only recently that other names have begun to be acknowledged," explains Stella Dadzie.

"Mary Prince, who was born into slavery in Bermuda in 1788, led a life that was fairly typical of many enslaved women. Across the West Indies, they were over-worked, flogged and abused on a regular basis. But Mary refused to be beaten into submission. Like many other enslaved women, she fought tooth and nail for her right to be free.

"Much of what we know about Mary’s life comes from her published narrative, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, which was published in 1831, three years before the British finally abolished slavery on 1 August 1834," Stella continues. "Mary’s poignant testimony stands as an example of the resilience and resistance of generations of enslaved women throughout the West Indies." To hear more about Mary Prince and other black revolutionary women, listen to the Freedom Fighters audio guide.

In this image, the artist avoided depicting any sign of harsh plantation conditions. Instead, he has shown enslaved people at leisure and dancing.

"It was purposefully done to create this false sense of what it was like," explains artist Sharon Walters. "That ability to lie and share these images that, years and years later, we’re still looking at [as] representations of that time, is both upsetting and sickening."

To hear the full discussion about this image and others in the Museum collection, listen to the Seeing Ourselves podcast.

The Liverpool ship, the Brooks, was used in the slave trade from 1783. Abolitionists in Britain commissioned a drawing of how people were squeezed on board the Brooks to raise awareness of the inhumanity of the slave trade.

"With the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807, you’d have thought such practices would have ceased. But today, almost 200 years later, African men and women still encounter conditions that are not dissimilar in their efforts to flee war, persecution or hunger," argues historian Stella Dadzie. Listen to the Freedom Fighters audio tour to learn more about this and other objects in the Atlantic Worlds gallery.

Gain a deeper insight into some of the Museum’s most prized – and lesser-known – objects on display with one of our friendly guides.

Daily tours are available when you visit, or you can choose to follow one of our dedicated audio guides and explore the Museum at your own pace.