An 1847 letter provides new evidence that a prominent British company continued illegally trafficking enslaved Africans to Guyana decades after Britain outlawed the slave trade and after the company’s affiliates received taxpayer-funded compensation connected to abolition, The Guardian reports.
The letter was sent to the Liverpool office of Sandbach, Tinne and Company by Peter Miller Watson, who managed the company’s interests in Demerara, then a British colony that is now part of Guyana. Watson documented the arrival of the Parker, a ship in the company’s fleet carrying 324 Africans, including 123 children. The ship carried 115 adult men, 86 adult women, 82 children younger than 14, and 41 children younger than 4.
One man and two children died during the voyage, according to the correspondence.
Author Malik Al Nasir, whose research is detailed in the book “Searching for My Slave Roots,” argues that language in the letter indicates the Africans were illegally trafficked rather than indentured workers or Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy. Watson referred to the Africans as “cargo,” a term Al Nasir said was associated with enslaved people rather than liberated Africans.
“By process of deduction, we can see these are people illegally trafficked from Africa,” Al Nasir told the outlet.
British corporation continued the trafficking of enslaved Africans to Guyana 40 years after abolition
— Socialist Voice (@SocialistVoice) August 23, 2026
Letter written in 1847 to Sandbach, Tinne and Company’s Liverpool office reveals it engaged in practice after receiving taxpayer-funded compensation https://t.co/VPBVIe80t7
The discovery adds another layer to Britain’s history with slavery. Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act in 1807, prohibiting the slave trade in British territories. The Slavery Abolition Act followed in 1833, abolishing slavery across most of the British Empire.
By 1847, Sandbach Tinne and its subsidiaries had already received compensation for people they had enslaved before abolition. The British government compensated enslavers for their purported financial losses while formerly enslaved people received nothing. The taxpayer-backed debt used to finance those payments was not fully paid off until 2015, according to the outlet.
Sandbach Tinne and families connected to the company were major players in Demerara’s sugar trade. Al Nasir’s research also points to an 1847 missionary account describing continued illegal trafficking from areas including Angola as slave traders attempted to evade British naval enforcement.
The findings helped inspire Overwriting-Underwriting, a research initiative examining the financial networks behind enslavement and their lasting legacy. The project launched Aug. 23 at the Museum of Liverpool.
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