line up fi a handshake. Watch dem celebrate being called Sir.
Enslaved African people were seared with hot metal brands bearing the royal crown, according to research by historians who have documented the monarchy’s centuries-long involvement in Britain’s slave trade.
The Register of British Slave Traders identifies thousands of people who invested in Britain’s trafficking of enslaved Africans, including kings and queens.
In response to the Guardian’s reporting of the new research relating to the monarchy, a spokesperson for King Charles said he was “grateful to all those undertaking academic work in this area and thus contributing to the debate about how such issues might best be addressed”.
Dr Nicholas Radburn, a historian at Lancaster University, discovered evidence of the branding in the archives of the South Sea Company, a British crown-backed enterprise that trafficked thousands of enslaved African people to plantations in the 1700s.
Radburn found a letter sent by the company’s board to its agents in Buenos Aires, instructing them to brand enslaved people with hot metal. The brand bore a crown, a symbol of the British monarchy’s role in the trade. A doctor had warned against the branding, but the board, whose members included figures from England’s establishment elite including MPs and Bank of England directors, instructed the agents to proceed.