The Crown’s Silence
A ground-breaking and essential work of history – the first of its kind to closely examine the British Royal Family’s connection with the transatlantic slave trade
The Crown’s Silence is the untold story of the British royal family’s relationship to slavery from the reign of Elizabeth I to the present. It will be the first history of the British monarchy told through the lens of its intimate, centuries-long relationship with African slave trading, slavery, and racial injustice.
A work of ground-breaking original research and narrative synthesis, it exposes the ways in which the British monarchy invested in, expanded, and defended the transatlantic slave trade for nearly three centuries and how it continues to profit from systems of racial exploitation to this day – while remaining silent in the face of that legacy. It will reveal how the Crown effectively ruptured and reshaped Britain’s national narrative and collective memory of its own colonial past as well as the consequences of that deafening silence.
As former British colonies in the Caribbean consider severing their ties with the Crown (and the British royal family sends emissaries to try to keep them), The Crown’s Silence tells a history that is very much in the headlines – and will no doubt continue to be. It will be the next chapter in revealing the lost histories of not only Britain and the United States, but of our world.
"Diligent, forensic and surprising, The Crown’s Silence is a book that will provoke many necessary and overdue conversations." – Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe -
"At last! A comprehensive yet forensic study of the royal family's slavery involvement. In response to Brooke N. Newman’s groundbreaking new book, the royals should use their global platform to promote better public knowledge of the slavery system and its legacies." – Professor Corinne Fowler, author of The Countryside: Ten Walks Through Rural Britain and its Hidden History of Empire -
"Brooke Newman’s meticulously sourced and gripping book puts the British Royal Family’s sanction and investment in the transatlantic slave trade in full view. Important, timely, and fascinating on every page, she asks the pressing question: will King Charles III become the first British monarch to break the Crown’s silence on this troubling history?" – Laura Trevelyan, journalist and Honorary Fellow at the University of the West Indies’ PJ Patterson Institute -
“Brooke Newman has written a brave, brilliant, and essential book, telling truths that many will not want to hear. I hope The Crown's Silence will inspire investigations of other maritime monarchies as we reckon with the still-deadly legacies of human bondage.” –Marcus Rediker, author of The Slave Ship: A Human History -