Sandbach, Tinne and Company linked to illegal slave trafficking

Evidence has emerged suggesting that the British corporation Sandbach, Tinne and Company continued to illegally traffic enslaved Africans to Guyana decades after the abolition of the slave trade.

Research by author Malik Al Nasir, detailed in his book ‘Searching for My Slave Roots’, uncovered an 1847 letter sent to the company’s Liverpool office. The letter, written by Peter Miller Watson, describes a company ship named ‘the Parker’ arriving in Demerara, Guyana, with a ‘cargo of negroes’. The shipment included 115 adult males, 86 adult females, 82 children under 14, and 41 children under 4 years old.

While the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 were intended to end such practices, the findings suggest the company maintained illegal operations. The discovery has prompted the launch of a new research project, ‘Overwriting-Underwriting’, which aims to investigate the financial networks that supported enslavement.