Britain's Slave Traders book and BBC series trace investors behind slave trade
A history that identifies about 13,000 investors behind Britain's trafficking of 3.3 million enslaved Africans has reached readers and television viewers together. The book is Britain's Slave Traders by William A. Pettigrew. The television companion is Finding Britain's Slave Traders on BBC Two, presented with David Olusoga.
The Guardian published its review of the book on 23 September 2026, as listed on its books pages The Guardian. The review presents Pettigrew's argument as the slave trade being found "in the depths of Britain's grain". It says that history transformed Britain in ways that still resonate today.
The numbers behind that argument are stark. Since April 2021, Pettigrew has led a group of nine academic historians who identified the investors who financed the trafficking. The review reports their finding of about 3.3 million enslaved Africans trafficked on British-financed voyages, with about half a million dying during the Atlantic crossing.
It also states that ninety per cent of the enslaved Africans transported to America went on British ships. That is a short sentence with a long shadow. The figure frames the rest of the review.
Money is the thread that links trade to institutions. The review states that bodies including the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Music were founded with the help of donations from slave traders. Pettigrew is a historian of Britain's contribution to the transatlantic traffic in enslaved African people, formerly of Lancaster University and now at King's College London Lancaster University.
At Lancaster, he served as Principal Investigator, meaning lead researcher, in the Department of History. That department led a £1 million project examining the significance of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The project provided the archival base for the later book and broadcast work.
The review places the book in a current political debate. In April 2026, the Reform party announced a policy of halting visas to people from countries seeking slavery reparations from Britain. Reform home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf said: "The United Kingdom is not an ATM for ethnic grievances from the past."
The publishing and broadcasting context runs alongside the argument. Penguin UK maintains an official book page for Britain's Slave Traders, where Pettigrew is described as a prize-winning historian. The same page lists him as series consultant, meaning the historian who advises the production on its research, on Finding Britain's Slave Traders, a series based on findings from his team.
The Times published its own review on 17 September 2026 under the headline "The hard truth: Britain was a nation of slave traders" The Times. That review states that Pettigrew deserves praise for exposing a contradiction too long ignored. The BBC series has also drawn press attention, including a television review in the Irish Independent on 21 September 2026 Irish Independent.
What makes this stand out for a general audience is the chain from page to screen. Archive research becomes a book. The book's research becomes television, and television brings names and numbers to viewers who may never open the footnotes.
