News

# Project to bring voices of enslaved people to life

The National Archives is working with international academics to make the
largest collection of first-person testimony of enslaved people from the
Caribbean in existence – the Reports of the Protectors of Slaves – accessible to
researchers anywhere in the world.

Published 20 November 2025

![An official document titled Report of the Protector of Slaves. The location 'British Guyana' has been filled in by hand.](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/media/images/Cover-Report-Protector-of-.2f29ce27.fill-1800x720.format-jpeg.jpegquality-60.bgcolor-fff.jpg)

Voices in Slavery’s Archive: Law, Place and Testimony in British Guiana will
digitise, map and analyse the records which are here at Kew and allow
researchers to examine how enslaved people used the courts to make complaints
relating to family life, work, health, violence, and a host of other issues.

The project has received a £1.5 million investment from the UKRI Arts and
Humanities research Council (AHRC).

Dr Philippa Hellawell, Head of Collections Research at The National Archives, is
a co-Lead on the project.

> This is an incredibly important opportunity to centre the voices of people who
> directly endured the hardships of slavery. Most records of enslavement are
> written by merchants and enslavers, but the Protector of Slaves reports, held at
> The National Archives, allow us to understand the experience of enslavement
> through their own words, not the words of others.

Dr Philippa Hellawell

As well as complementing existing important digital resources on slavery, Voices
in Slavery’s Archive will pioneer new methods to examine the history of slavery
by combining archival research with digital tools, community engagement, and
family and community history.

Led by Professor Diana Paton from the University of Edinburgh, the project team
will produce an online resource including the full text of the enslaved people’s
complaints, and images of the original documents. The project will also create a
physical facsimile of the documents, which will be deposited at the Walter
Rodney National Archives of Guyana.

The project is a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, The National
Archives (UK), University of Guyana, Xavier University, the University of
Sheffield Digital Humanities Institute, the Walter Rodney National Archives of
Guyana, and Guyana SPEAKS.

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