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.
The Register of British Slave Traders, the new historical record for which Radburn was a lead investigator, documents how Britain’s enslaving and trafficking of more than 3 million African people for nearly 250 years was perpetrated as an official national enterprise, led by its monarchs.
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