ABSTRACT
Isolated, obscure, and difficult to contextualise socially or biographically, the following letter from James Harris is a potent metonym for the struggle to piece together the fragmentary and often murky history of the black presence in eighteenth-century England. It was recently discovered by Madge Dresser of the University of the West of England. As yet, no other details about Harris’s life have come to light. The letter was sent to James Rogers, a leading slave trader who arrived in Bristol from South Wales just before the American War of Independence began. He made fifty-one voyages to the West Coast of Africa between 1783 and 1792, a high number considering that in 1787 – the year of Harris’s plea – only twenty-two slaving ships sailed from Bristol, less than both London and Liverpool.
