// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
British Crown symbol was branded on enslaved Africans, research finds
Enslaved African people were branded with an identifying mark that included an emblem of the British Crown, according to new research by a project documenting British involvement in the slave trade.
Prof William Pettigrew, who led the Register of British Slave Traders research, described the imprinting as a "dramatic and harrowing" symbol of the monarchy's relationship to slavery.
The register, external lists 13,000 individuals and hundreds of institutions known to have invested in Britain's role in slavery between 1563 and 1807, when the trade was abolished across the British Empire.
Researchers say it is the most comprehensive examination of a national community of slave traders ever undertaken.
Dr Nicholas Radburn, historian at Lancaster University and co-investigator in the project, told the BBC he first found the identifying mark - which is an image of the Crown, with the South Sea Company logo below it - while looking through the company's archives at the British Library in 2022.
Founded in 1711, the South Sea Company was set up as a public and private British company and trafficked thousands of enslaved Africans.
Radburn said it was "remarkable" to find records of the branding "buried in a very nondescript sounding volume: 'The Register of Instruments'".
In 2024, he found letters that helped piece the story together. They were from the company's director to their "factors" (slave traders) in the Spanish Americas, Radburn explained.
"The letters were full of very detailed instructions on how to conduct the slave trade," he recalled.
One letter from February 1714 was "exceptional because it laid bare so clearly the ways in which the London-based directors were personally involved in the violence that was committed against the enslaved in the Americas".