Atlantic slavery does not loom large in the traditional telling of Welsh history. Yet Wales, like many regions of Europe, was deeply affected by the forced migration of captive Africans. This book looks at Slave Wales between 1650 and 1850. It casts light on episodes such as Welsh involvement with slave-based copper mining in 19th-century Cuba.

Between the mid-fifteenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries, nearly twelve million Africans were enslaved and transported across the Atlantic to colonies in North and South America and the West Indies. With Slave Wales, Chris Evans traces the role that Wales and the Welsh played in this infamous trade. Evans reveals that many of these slaves were purchased with commodities like copper and brass that originated in Wales. He also shows that some of the wealth that slaves generated in the West Indies made its way back to Wales, often to fund the construction of furnaces and mills. With appearances by Henry Morgan, Thomas Williams, Anthony Bacon, and Thomas Picton, this penetrating investigation will be required reading for historians on both sides of the Atlantic.