The Legacies of Enslavement Special Initiative and Cambridge University Press hosted the launch of The University of Cambridge in the Age of Atlantic Slavery by Dr Nicolas Bell-Romero. The event was chaired by Professor Pedro Ramos Pinto, Convenor of the Legacies of Enslavement Special Initiative.
Dr Bell-Romero's book was the result of several years of research, initially undertaken in the context of the 2019-2022 University Legacies of Enslavement working group. This landmark study is the first overview of the ways in which the University, its colleges, fellows and alumni were connected to the creation, development, legitimation and also to the contestation of the Atlantic Slavery system between the 17th and the 19th centuries.
The launch was an opportunity to celebrate the authors achievement, but also to discuss and reflect on how Cambridge’s history intersects with slavery and its enduring legacies, touching on questions around current experiences of Black staff and students, and how histories and processes of archival recovery can contribute to new discussions and rethinking the University’s past, present and future.
This book launch did more than spotlight a new publication: it prompted questions about identity, institutional memory and justice.
About the author and the book
The University of Cambridge in the Age of Atlantic Slavery is a major contribution to the history of higher education and colonialism. It brings together expertise in institutional history, the history of slavery and the British Atlantic world drawing on archival work, quantitative analysis and critical interpretation to open up new perspectives on how universities are shaped by – and shape – social and economic systems tied to slavery.
This title is now in print also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Dr Nicolas Bell-Romero is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Tulane University History Project. He previously served as a Research Associate with the University of Cambridge’s Legacies of Enslavement Inquiry and Gonville & Caius College’s investigation into its historical ties to slavery and colonialism. He is currently working on a centuries-long history of governmental compensation to slaveholders in the United States of America and the British Empire.
