Portrait of a Slave-Trading Family
Portrait of a Slave-Trading Family
The Staniforths of Liverpool
This chapter offers a perspective on the attitudes of those involved in the slave trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. Liverpool was the dominant British slaving port in this period with a core of merchants who were heavily engaged in the trade. Using a rare collection of business and personal papers belonging to a Liverpool merchant, Thomas Staniforth, questions are asked about the commercial and social networks of the slave traders, the interplay between slaving and other business concerns such as privateering and whaling, and the attitudes of an anti-abolitionist. The world of the Staniforth papers is revealed as one in which family and commercial concerns dominated, an environment which was politically saturated in the business of the slave trade and captured in a series of revealing portraits by Joseph Wright of Derby.
Keywords: Slave trade, Eighteenth century, Liverpool merchant, Thomas Staniforth, Anti abolitionism, Wright of Derby
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