About This Project
Empire Uncovered is an educational resource dedicated to the history of the British Empire -- told without sanitisation, without agenda, and without the selective memory that dominates contemporary discourse.
The Empire built by Britain was neither uniquely virtuous nor uniquely evil. It was vast, complex, and contradictory. It abolished the slave trade while profiting from slavery. It built railways and canals while extracting wealth. It spread the rule of law while imposing colonial rule. All of these things are true simultaneously.
This site presents the evidence: primary sources, parliamentary debates, ships' logs, newspaper accounts, and data. The conclusions are left to the reader.
Methodology
Every article cites its sources. Where data is presented, the original figures are referenced. Where interpretation is offered, it is labelled as such. The goal is not to persuade but to inform.
Primary Sources
- Hansard — Parliamentary debates on abolition, 1807-1833
- The Times Digital Archive — Contemporary newspaper accounts, 1785-2019
- National Archives (Kew) — Colonial Office records, ships' logs, Famine Commission reports
- Dampier, William — A New Voyage Round the World (1697)
Secondary Sources
- Ferguson, Niall — Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)
- Dalrymple, William — The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire (2019)
- Hochschild, Adam — Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves (2005)
- Bayly, Christopher — Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (1988)
The comics
The illustrated strips in the Comics Archive are a legacy series, kept as first published — provenance applies to our own work too. Each strip is grounded in the verified historical record, with sources listed alongside. A new series of engraved plates, Drawn from History, is in production.