Excessive Memories: Slavery, Insurance and Resistance

This article was originally published in a special edition of History Workshop Journal marking the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 2007. It is republished in a 2021 History Workshop Journal Virtual Special Issue, 'Black British Histories', edited by Caroline Bressey, Meleisa Ono-George, Diana Paton, Kennetta Hammond Perry and Sadiah Qureshi. The Virtual Special Issue brings together material published in History Workshop Journal and History Workshop Online over a roughly thirty-year period and provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and significance of Black British history. The article uses insurance policies to excavate the history of African struggle and refusal on board slave ships and their connections to contemporary reparations campaigns.