YouSaid · the spoken record

Brooke Newman

lines on the record: 37
first: 2026-03-29
most recent: 2026-03-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Will continue to have to deal with this. Anytime there is a meeting of the Commonwealth, heads of government, that will be a moment for both pageantry but also protests. And so more and more of these royal events are, I think, in some ways negative because there's more protesters than ever before. The disappoint for the monarchy is declining kind of overall, especially among younger Britons. So why not address something and demonstrate that really we are going to change the institution? We are going to reform it. And one of the first steps is to address this history that we all know is there. It's the elephant in the room. It's the elephant stamped on these guinea coins and we still have not addressed it.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Appointments, you know, when they're traveling, all of these different ways that the monarchy and members of the royal family are actually not being accountable to the public. I think this slavery issue and this colonial past is part of that larger process of being transparent, of saying, yes, this institution is imperfect. Here is what we did in the past, but also here is what happened historically at the time, what the country was doing, how it was in a larger geopolitical conflict with these other countries doing similar things who are also dealing with this. I mean, Britain is not the only country going through this current questioning of the colonial past, involvement with slavery. And so to just ignore all of that and continue not to address it and say it's regrettable is, I think, insufficient, but it's also just kicking the can down the road and William.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So that notion that we led the way, we don't need to be accountable because of that. And so it's essentially like saying, you know, we've done all of this. So 95% of what we did was horrible. But this last 5% is what we're going to focus on instead and just close the door on the rest of it. We're doing a disservice to the younger generation. When we do that, but also, and I mean, I am not obviously, I'm an American, so I'm not a monarchist. But as someone who studies the monarchy, We're doing a disservice to the longevity of this institution as well because as you know all of the comments I've been hearing right now are about how people want more transparency. They want more accountability from the monarchy, whether that's talking about tax deals they're getting, about the duchies, about finances, about who is getting what sweetheart deal at what palace, about how are people using”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, absolutely not. I think that everything that has happened in an even actually since in my book with Prince Albert delivering the first statement of regret in 1840, this idea that it is regrettable that we were involved, but we led the way in abolishing the transatlantic slave trade and ultimately in ending slavery. And so we should be congratulated because we were the champions of abolition. And that narrative is just repeated over and over and over again, not just by members of the royal family, but also by political leaders, by PN.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, excellent question. So I would say having started this book project officially in 2017, like that's when I went the first time to the round tower. And at that point, I was applying for funding. And I actually had some anonymous reviewers say, this is not an important topic. It's just not significant. And I thought, wow. So that was, I really faced a lot of just apathy around my book topic initially. Then after 2020 and during 2020, there was this sea change.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The past right now, and they're essentially all saying the same thing. We need to look forward, we need to like stop, not try to unpick our past. And so because of the lack of political support for this, there's really no reason for the king to do anything unless there was a groundswell of public opinion and they pulled and essentially noticed that, okay, maybe it would actually benefit the institution if we did something. And so until that happens, I just don't think there'll be any movement on this issue, but I also hope that the more people learn about this. And it's one of the reasons I wrote this book for a wider audience, the more pressure they'll actually be on institutions to acknowledge the past so that we don't continue to ignore it and make the same mistakes over and over again going forward.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And people have asked me, do you think that Charles will do something about the slavery issue, especially now as like a distraction from other things? And I was like, I don't know because it's such an enormous undertaking because this is not a simple issue. This is an issue where you have to both acknowledge this history, work with the government, and it doesn't matter if it's a labor government or a conservative government. They're not prioritizing.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going to have another chapter because why should we if people feel as though this history either doesn't exist or isn't important enough to talk about then we're not going to get to the next step of this conversation and I'm really curious to know if somebody like Charles will do anything about this because he's already got a lot of pressure that he's dealing with right now in addition to health issues and all the drama going on with former Prince Andrew.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, definitely. And it's because, unfortunately, the whole idea of empire and slavery has been caught up in the culture wars. And it shouldn't be. It's really, it shouldn't be part of that. It should be taken on its own terms and assessed on its own terms. And I do think, I mean, and I talk about all this in my book, I think this is a story ultimately of progress. Progress is made, but at the same time, there's so much that remains to be done. And that is why in my book, I argue that we are still in this era of silences. We're not yet at the part of the story where we reached a new chapter, where we're at the point where we're at acknowledgement, repair, apology, none of that has happened. And I think until everything that came before is addressed and discussed and actually out in the open instead of suppressed, there were”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He also owned enslaved people. Thomas Jefferson, so many of these people who are revered and seen as key to national identity were flawed and were problematic. And I think that that is something that in the UK is becoming increasingly clear when it comes to the monarchy, but it's also really only now that it's being addressed.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's safe though because it's a more hopeful story. And you think about, I mean, and I've really thought about this a lot having written this book and talked about it, but also in the United States, we're grappling with this as well, because national identity is constantly in flux. And what we want is something stable and secure. And on the one hand, that's what the monarchy provides, this illusion of stability. But as we know from recent events, The monarchy goes through moments where it dips in popularity when it loses its moral authority, its sense of moral clarity, and people start to question institutions. And once people start questioning institutions, then they start questioning their identity. And we've had that in the US too with the presidency, not just because of Trump, but also because of the fact that presidents in the past were deeply flawed as well. George Washington.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looking after them, but at the same time they're rebelling. They're running away. They are not happy. They are not grateful to be enslaved by the crown. And it becomes clear that that is the overarching narrative. And I think that the black abolitionists also make that very clear to the British public. And that is why their voices in the story are so impactful and powerful at the time. And I think even now they're still there, but we tend to overlook them and focus more on like parliamentary actions and the actions of these, I mean, and they were really important people like Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce. They played a critical role, but they were aided by people who'd actually lived the experience of enslavement and were trying to get people in Britain to empathize with the condition of enslaved people and to see them as fellow subjects instead of as”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They are being asked to work at the royal dockyards in the Caribbean, sometimes in positions where they're actually skilled laborers. They're also being asked to engage in military conflict in the king's name. They're being purchased in the king's name. They're being essentially owned by the crown if their previous owner dies without a legal heir or a will. And so there are all of these different ways that the monarchy is still involved in exploiting enslaved people, but because of the fact that there is some paperwork that survives from that period, there's also moments where you get a glimpse at life, like the life of some of these people who were stationed, let's say, you know, on”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so during this era, there's the era of essentially exploratory sporadic investment in transatlantic slave trade. And then there is this rapid expansion that occurs in the 17th and 18th centuries. But then once you get to the reign of George III after 1760, there's wars, there's slave revolts, there's mass revolutions. And because of all of this ongoing conflict, there are actually more voices preserved as well as more people who end up essentially being involved in the monarchy's defense of its empire. And those are parts of the story that I was able to shift. So I went from essentially tracking more about, you know, who is investing in what in the earlier period to how are people being used essentially by the monarchy? And they're being used in the sense that”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Four parts, but I would say this is the last the parts three and four because in those parts of the book there is a lot of things that are rupturing essentially.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was absolutely one of my goals when writing this book. And there's such a rich historiography of scholars who have written about silences in the archive and essentially what do you do if you're trying to understand the lived experience of slavery at the same time that you're trying to trace complicity and actually have a through line over the centuries of involvement. And that is what my book does. And I will say it's much easier as a historian as you get into the 18th century because there's more enslaved voices that are preserved as well as a number of formerly enslaved people who become active in the abolitionist community. And so I really tried to prioritize the voices of enslaved people as much as I could in the book, but especially in the second part of the book essentially.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Embrace a system that they know involves selling people. And they're actually proud of it at the time. And in a lot of ways, this is a story I think about how during the earlier eras, they really weren't silent about this. They were trumpeting these connections. The silence really comes and descends later in the process when the both the monarchy and the country embraces this idea of being at the vanguard of abolition and anti-slavery. At that point, it's like there's just this cloak drawn over this century of centuries of investment, but also not being ashamed of this, of making these connections clear in a way that it appears in archival records, in economic records, in the records of slave trading companies, in the Church of England's records. In material culture, in art, in so many different ways.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's really heavy. It's both shocking to me to see this in the archives, but it's also upsetting to think that it hasn't been addressed. And even the response to my book in some quarters in the UK has been she, you know, this isn't that significant. She's overblowing this. There's no real evidence here. The evidence is there. And so that to me is really interesting because I think it's a way of essentially minimizing the impact of the historical record, of essentially saying, you know, this is not that significant. But to me it is. It is significant that you have members of the royal family and whoever is sitting on the throne at the time investing in slavery in this institution, being willing to essentially”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what I discovered, and was actually somewhat surprised, was that the brand DY was in use in the 17th century, but also well into the 18th century, that there's multiple eyewitness observers who comment on this, but more importantly, there is correspondence in the Royal African Company's Voluminous Archive, where they are instructing their agents at Cape Coast Castle and other major forts along the West African coast to continue this custom. And I found that really striking because you would think that after this company has lost the Stuart as their major patron and they've pivoted and buy the 18th century, there's a whole new modern, right? There's the Hanovian dynasty in place. They're still using DY, which is just such a fascinating detail. But also it's only...”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talked about the Duke of York's initials being used as a brand on enslaved people, but I was very curious about who exactly was branded and when and how long this lasted. Did this continue after he was deposed and, you know, run out of the country for his absolutist tendencies in Catholicism?”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, King Charles II initially, but then subsequent monarchs as well with the royal African company's emblem, which was the elephant or the elephant in castle. So this is a way of essentially advertising royal patronage of this trade that the monarchy believed will lead to a flourishing nation, a flourishing empire, and a flourishing economy. And so they want to be associated with this. And that is why the brand are such a critical part of the story, because it's not just in coinage or in art, it's also part of like literally putting their brand on people's bodies. And the two brands that I found in the records that were used were RACE for the Royal African Company of England, as well as DY for the Duke of York. And when I set out to research this book, there, you know, people for years and years.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and just to briefly go back to what you were just saying, I think it's a really important point that the Crown's endorsement of the transatlantic slave trade was both material and it was symbolic. And this symbolism is abundantly clear in material culture, in things like portraits of his mistresses who were depicted with enslaved children who had collars around their necks in silver or gold or brass or even pearls. And they were fashionable at court. So it was fashionable and a sign of elite status to not only surround yourself with enslaved people and to invest in slavery, but to be depicted and immortalized in essentially in this master slave relationship that we see in these images, as well as the Guinea coins that were minted that featured the image of”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Being willing to provide convoys that will help protect shipping on the West African coast and in the Caribbean. And he ends up actually telling the Royal African Company, you know, you can take money that comes in for customs revenue from agricultural produce in the colonies and put that towards my subscription and Queen Catherine's subscription. And so there's this system that they're developing where they're hoping investment in one thing will actually lead to greater wealth overall, not just personally, but for the institution of the monarchy itself. And I think the Stuart time period is probably the most fascinating because that is blurred, both personal profit and then how the money is actually going into the Royal Treasury and supporting the ordinary operation of the monarchs.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She's also an investor in the Royal African Company. So is her husband, so is the Duke of York, so is their cousin Prince Rupert, so is the Queen Mother, so is one of the king's sisters. But what's fascinating about, I think, the Royal African Company and that initial story is that the king and the queen, they subscribe all of this money into the Royal African Company, but they can't really afford to pay up. And so the archival record is full of all of these references to the company essentially gently prodding King Charles and saying, you know, where is your subscription? You know, could you please set an example for all these other subscribers who are tardy? And the king eventually loans ships from the Royal Navy and supplies and men. So he is essentially paying for his subscription through material assistance to this company, as well as”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so, to get involved in actually getting a share of the transatlantic slave trade makes both political but also economic sense for the Stuarts. And so they are initially chartering the royal adventurers. And the goal of that company, like so many companies before them, like the Guinea Company, initially is to find gold mines because they're hoping to just generate some revenue. But when that is a pipe dream, they realized very quickly they pivot to trade in African people because that will not only enable them to profit off of the expansion of the slave trade itself, but also to profit from the expansion of slavery and an enslaved population who will then produce these commodities, these agricultural products that are in demand in Britain, in Europe, and elsewhere.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, one way to sum this up is that even though Oliver Cromwell is not a monarch, we have to pause and talk a little bit about him because it's the 1650s Commonwealth era that I think is such a critical transition moment because of the fact that under Cromwell and in conjunction with Parliament, the Royal Navy, it's not Royal at that point, but the Navy is expanded dramatically. And this is inherited by the Stuarts. When King Charles II comes to the throne in 1660, he has this, you know, drastically expanded navy, which no previous monarch had had. So this was a really a gift in some ways from Cromwell. He's also inherited Jamaica as a royal colony.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Currency, they're not bullion rich in that same way. They want to, especially these like enterprising merchant community, they want to expand commercially and also ideally territorially. And Elizabeth, because she's a Protestant, is absolutely interested in this as well. You know, she doesn't care as much about what the Catholics think as long as she's not getting into direct armed conflict because she cannot win. At least initially that's definitely what she thinks.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, the Iberian powers were essentially monopolizing the Atlantic world, both commercially but also in terms of territory. By the time Elizabeth is on the throne, the Spanish has already created a large empire in the Americas. They've already enslaved a number of indigenous populations. There's already been periods of genocide, both on purpose, but also accidentally through the spread of disease. And they're relying on the Portuguese who claim a monopoly over the West African coast and West African trade to provide them with enslaved Africans. And so there's a trade that's already flourishing and there's all of these material and natural and human resources that the Iberian powers are exploiting and that the Spanish, of course, are making all of this money and bringing it back to Europe. And at the same time, England is lacking”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think most people who, not historians but sort of your average person who knows about the Elizabethan era doesn't realize that the queen had actually let a number of different merchant groups use her vessels, as had previous monarchs, you know, Queen Mary and others, but part of the issue is that they were just hoping to get involved in all sorts of different commodities that were already in high demand, not only in England, but in re-export European markets. So stuff like ivory, obviously gold, dye woods, pepper, these were products that were coveted at the time and there was no market necessarily for the English to transport commodified and enslaved Africans. But Hawkins was someone who was willing to break into the Spanish American Empire. And I think he probably convinced the Queen that this was something that wasn't just a one-off.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exchange for a cut of the proceeds to trade with West Africa. The key was that in this particular case, it was a slaving venture that Hawkins had conducted the previous year and the fact that he had returned and was a successful and people were talking about this at court. This is what led her to get involved in this venture specifically.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that in terms of what the evidence says and what we can argue based on the surviving evidence, that it's the moment when it's clear that a monarch, a sitting monarch, knew exactly what she was involved in, that there's actual correspondence that survives of Hawkins telling the queen, this is my intention. And he says this, and it survives in state papers. And we know that she gave him first the minion, sorry, first the Jesus of Lubeck, which was a 700-con ship. This was an enormous ship. And, you know, she permitted him to fly the royal standard. And she was doing this because she hoped to profit. But one of the things that I talk about in the book in terms of putting Elizabeth in context is that she was not the first monarch by any means who had gifted essentially merchant groups use of a royal naval vessel and”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Places like the National Archives and the British Library, then you're able to look at a wider variety of sources. So there is the sort of state perspective as well as the commercial company perspective. And those two things combined were incredibly useful when trying to piece together this story, as well as correspondence between colonial Governors and the Board of Trade or the Privy Council in agents that were based in the colonies with slavery.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To access this material. At the same time, the Royal Archives only contains surface level material related to slavery. And I spent about six weeks working in that archive. And I found a number of really interesting things. But at the same time, I knew that I would have to go out further afield into the larger imperial records in order to get a clearer sense. And then the other part of your question I think that's important is that depending on what time period or what rain in particular the evidence changes. So for someone like Queen Elizabeth or James I was heavily reliant on state papers or on some of the colonial office records later under James. But then when you get to the reigns of the Stuarts because they actually chartered slave trading companies and those companies' records survive.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, one of the key stories I like to tell about this book when I'm talking about it is that, you know, after I'd already been working on it for a number of years and had actually drafted some of the chapters in right before the coronation, King Charles announced in response to the Guardian's cost to the crown series that he was going to open the Royal Archives for researchers and allow them to access the Royal Archives and the Royal Collections. And I thought, well, that's really interesting because not only had I already been in the Rail Archives, but many historians had already been working in the Royal Archives for decades. It is true that it is difficult to get in there. You have to get a security clearance. There's a lot of red tape. When I was working in the Royal Archives, several years ago, you had to actually be escorted to the toilet. So there was a lot of antiquated things around doing that research. But it wasn't necessarily the case that we needed Charles to allow us.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Specific regions or just a company, they're not looking at this long story over many centuries and they're definitely not focused on the monarchies. The monarchs and members of the royal family as like the principal historical actors. And so that's what really drove me to focus on that for my book.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of them, there was maybe a couple pages about slavery, and so I thought, first of all, in the historiography of monarchy itself, there's really not very much about slavery. I thought that that was really interesting. And then secondly, I just wanted to know, I wanted to know how the role of the monarchy changed over time. And essentially, is there, I asked myself, you know, is there a story here? And so it really was for me, I wrote the book that I wanted to read. It was a book that I thought, you know, I wanted to read, but also that should already exist. And I was surprised that it didn't. And anyone who was a historian of Atlantic slavery is very familiar with sort of the early history of colonization, the rise of the transatlantic slave trade, the royal African company, but most of these books are in some ways siloed in the sense that they are about very specific time periods, very specific.”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What led me to this topic was my interest in slavery primarily at Atlantic history and my first book was about the rise of slave society in colonial Jamaica. And that book took me a while to research. And while I was researching colonial Jamaica, I kept coming across references to whoever was the current monarch, depending on what century I was in. And a lot of these references were in state correspondence between the colonial office and the Jamaica Assembly. And sometimes the comments that were being made were things like, you know, His Majesty is concerned about X. And it was stuff that I had never read before I'd never seen. And so I went and got a bunch of biographies of monarchs. I had read the historiography of slavery, but not really the biographies of the monarchs. And I had piles of these biographies. And some of them are like 800 pages. And in most”
2026-03-29 · Intelligence Squared · How deeply was the British Crown involved in the transatlantic slave trade? With author of The Crown’s Silence, Brooke Newman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT