Introduction

In the past the problem of the memorialisation of slavery was the absence of memorials. As recently as 1988, for example, the managing director of Heritage Projects Ltd. dismissed the very idea of a Museum of Slavery as unacceptable to the British public. He had rejected outright a proposal to build one. ¹ With the exception of some pioneering work by the Smithsonian, and Colonial Williamsburg, the silence on the other side of the Atlantic was equally deafening. In 2007, however, the bicentennial of the abolition of the British slave trade was commemorated by almost every major British museum: the V&A, National Maritime Museum, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum – not to mention other events including major exhibitions in London, Swansea, Hull, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Newcastle Upon Tyne. What had changed? Factors cited as influential between the 1980s and today include: the novel and television series Roots (1977), the influence of the Holocaust Museum (1979), films such as Glory, Amistad and Beloved (though the two last named flopped at the box office), well-made television documentaries and, more generally, the increase in television programmes focused on history and testimony, the rise of heritage tourism and the development of history as a leisure pursuit from the late 1990s. ² History has become, in some senses, a product to be consumed by the public. And history sells well, especially as a means to urban regeneration, associated with the establishment of cultural quarters in many cities.