One of the defining images of the transatlantic slave trade is of a Liverpool ship.
The 1781 ship Brooks (also known as Brook, Brookes or Bruz) launched from Liverpool and made 11 voyages in the triangular slave trade - between Europe, Africa and the Americas - transporting around 5,000 enslaved Africans. However, the ship garnered notoriety from prints first published in 1788.
Prints depicting enslaved people packed into the boat became key to the campaign to abolish the trade in Britain. The prints show, from a bird's eye view, the number of people that could legally be transported on the vessel.
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The ship was said to have been allowed to transport 454 enslaved people at a time, which would give a space of 1.8m by 0.41m for each man and considerably less for women and children. However, according to text on one of the anti-slavery posters that featured the print, the Brooks carried over 600 people on one journey and almost 750 on another.
The print was said to have been crucial in shaping attitudes on slavery in Britain. According to research from the University of York, it was first designed in Plymouth and published by the Plymouth Chapter of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, becoming widely available soon after.
The print's depiction of enslaved people crammed into the ship's confined space does not take into account the area required for stowage of provisions, water and other physical items. In reality, slaves would have had even less space.
However, the print was to be very impactful. Many believe it was the first time the British public were presented with an image of the conditions which enslaved people were transported in. It also gave Members of Parliament (MPs) a view of what it was like on a ship, in order to advance the abolition campaign.
After its 11 journeys between Liverpool, Africa and the Americas, Brooks was condemned in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1804. With the help of the visual aid of the striking images of the prints, the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was passed in 1807 and prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire.
This was expanded by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which gradually abolished slavery in the British Empire.
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