Black and British: A Forgotten History, from the acclaimed historian and star of 'Celebrity Traitors'

by David Olusoga

In the early morning of the Emancipation Day one of the most unusual funerals in British history took place. In the grounds of a nearby school a grave had been dug. A coffin was then brought forward into which were placed the instruments of slavery; a pair of shackles, a chain, a whip and an iron collar. A crowd assembled and in the dawn light the coffin was lowered into the earth, Jamaican soil into which the bodies of around a million slaves had been interred over the previous three centuries. The congregation sang their hymns and gave their cheers and the flag of freedom, with the Union flag set into its corner. A headstone placed above the grave read, ‘Colonial Slavery died 31 July 1838, Age 276 years’.29