Maritime Seminars 2017-2018: Sea of Contradiction - Black Seafarers in the Royal Navy, S. I. Martin

Event recording from 09/11/2017 While Britain was becoming the largest trafficker in human lives across the Atlantic, the Royal Navy was simultaneously the world's largest employer of free African labour. This talk seeks to establish the origins, status and significance of this workforce and how their experiences aboard ship and ashore contributed to Black revolutionary thought across the Atlantic World and to the beginnings of multi-ethnic communities across the British Isles. Speaker S. I. Martin was born in Bedford and has worked as a journalist for The Voice and Bulletin. He is the author of a novel, Incomparable World (1996), which tells the story of three black exiles living in 18th-century London; and a non-fiction title, Britain's Slave Trade (1999), published to accompany a television series screened on Channel 4.In 2007 his children's novel, Jupiter Williams, was published. It tells the tale of a boy who lives in the African Academy in Clapham, London, in 1800. His latest book is Jupiter Amidships (2009). S. I. Martin has curated archive-based exhibitions and projects for numerous organisations including the National Gallery, English Heritage, the National Maritime Museum, the Imperial War Museum, and the Black Cultural Archives amongst many others. This seminar series was hosted by the ‘Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War’, King’s College London, and organised by the British Commission for Maritime History (www.maritimehistory.org.uk) in association with the Society for Nautical Research UPCOMING EVENTS AT KING'S COLLEGE LONDON FEMALE ENGAGEMENT IN HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS All-female military units are known as Team Lioness and Female Engagement Teams (FETs). Did the British Armed Forces implement the FET model successfully in Afghanistan? 🗓Jan 17, 2018 ⏰ 6.00 PM 📍Strand Campus 👉 RSVP: bit.ly/2jwkYas KING'S ENGAGED IN AFRICA: SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT Organised by the Africa Research Group (War Studies, KCL) and the African Leadership Centre (KCL), King’s Engaged in Africa showcases the work of King’s College London researchers actively engaged in and with the African continent, and draws on perspectives from the wider African research community. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Security and Development’ broadly defined. 🗓 Jan 24-25, 2018 ⏰ All Day📍Strand Campus 👉 RSVP: http://bit.ly/2yP2WYT