This post was originally published on Audible.co.uk.
Brooke Newman’s The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas is a groundbreaking historical investigation that dismantles the traditional image of the British monarchy as a bystander or a benevolent force for abolition. Rather than just profiling monarchs, however, Newman uses archival fragments to highlight the voices of the enslaved and Black abolitionists, such as Ottobah Cugoano, who appealed to the Crown for justice but were ignored. As Newman explains, the “scars” of this history remain visible, and she provides critical context for current debates regarding royal accountability, reparations, and restorative justice.
Jerry Portwood: Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello and Nikole Hannah-Jones's The 1619 Project were both bombshells in the US, helping to reframe American history. Do you think your book could have a similar effect in the UK by educating more people about the British monarchy's historical connection to the transatlantic slave trade?
Brooke Newman: What Annette Gordon-Reed and Nikole Hannah-Jones did was not simply to add new information, but to re-centre slavery within America’s national story. In the UK, the monarchy is often imagined as symbolic and ceremonial, somehow removed from the machinery of empire. My book shows—based on extensive archival research—that the Crown was structurally embedded in the imperial system that enabled and profited from the transatlantic slave trade and colonial slavery.
If it has a similar effect, it will be because it shifts how readers and listeners understand “royal history.” This is not a story about individual prejudice or isolated investments; it is about charters, trading monopolies, governance, and the ways the monarchy’s authority intersected with systems of racial slavery over centuries. By placing those connections at the centre rather than the margins, the book invites a broader reconsideration of Britain’s past and of what historical accountability might mean today.
You're a renowned expert in early modern Britain and the British monarchy, but do you think being an "outsider" who is based in the United States allowed you to have a distinct perspective on this subject in particular?
That’s an interesting question. In some respects, being based in the United States has sharpened my perspective. In American public life and scholarship, slavery is widely recognised as central to the nation’s founding and development—even if the reckoning with that fact remains incomplete and contested. Working within that intellectual environment made it difficult for me to accept narratives of British exceptionalism that position the UK primarily as the nation that abolished the slave trade.
At the same time, I don’t see myself as an “outsider” to the field. My training and research are grounded in early modern British history and in British archives. What perhaps distinguishes my approach is that I move between historiographies: British imperial history, Atlantic history, and royal history. That transatlantic vantage point makes it easier to see the monarchy not simply as a national institution, but as a central node within a much larger imperial and economic system—an authority that granted charters, sanctioned monopolies, shaped colonial governance, and derived material and political benefit from the structures that sustained transatlantic slavery.
Often, historical accounts dense with archival research can feel impenetrable to those outside scholarly fields. Luckily, you have Allyson Johnson enlivening the text with her masterly narration. Did you have a particular "ideal" reader or listener in mind when you were crafting the prose to make it more accessible?
I did. From the outset, I imagined a reader or listener who was deeply interested in British history, the royal family, and the history of slavery—but who might not necessarily be a specialist in early modern political economy or imperial governance. My goal was to write a book grounded in archival research while remaining narratively clear and analytically transparent.
That meant avoiding unnecessary jargon, carefully explaining institutional structures, and foregrounding human stakes alongside constitutional and economic developments. I wanted the argument to be accessible without diluting its complexity—to invite a broad audience into a serious historical conversation about how these subjects are interconnected. Allyson Johnson is phenomenal—her narration really brings the material to life. Her voice makes complex history feel immediate and compelling, and I think listeners come away not just informed but fully engaged with the story.
Some have seen your book as a useful "handbook for the reparations movement." What are your hopes in that regard?
I would distinguish carefully between writing advocacy and writing history. My primary obligation is to the archive: to reconstruct, as accurately as possible, the monarchy’s long-standing entanglements with the transatlantic slave trade and colonial slavery. That said, rigorous history inevitably shapes contemporary debate. If the book is useful to those engaged in discussions about reparations, it is because it clarifies the institutional record—who authorised what, who benefited, and how those structures evolved over time.
My hope is not to prescribe specific policy outcomes, but to ensure that public conversations proceed from an informed foundation. Reparations debates hinge on questions of responsibility, acknowledgement, and state liability. By documenting the Crown’s structural role within imperial systems of slavery, the book provides historical context that can sharpen those discussions and move them beyond abstraction towards evidence-based analysis.
If you could pose a direct question to the British royal family regarding historical accountability—or anything else—what would it be?
If I were to pose a question, it would be framed in institutional rather than personal terms. I would ask: Given the Crown’s documented, centuries-long links to systems of transatlantic slavery and colonial exploitation, what does meaningful historical accountability look like for a constitutional monarchy in the 21st century?
More specifically, how does the royal household understand its relationship to that archival record? Is acknowledgment sufficient? Does accountability require a formal apology, sustained financial commitments, expanded archival transparency, or partnership with descendant communities? My work traces the historical structures; the pressing question now is how an institution that emphasises continuity and tradition responds to a past that is inseparable from imperial violence and racial slavery.
