Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), Robert Wedderburn (1762-1835), and John Jea (1773-1817) were born in the 18th century when Britain was reaching its peak as a slave-trading nation. Kidnapped as children in what is now modern-day Nigeria, or born to an enslaved mother in Jamaica, they all experienced first-hand the brutality of slavery. Their lives typify the transatlantic movement of the Black Atlantic, and when they found themselves in Britain, all three used their voice to campaign tirelessly for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. If you are familiar with their more famous works, you will recognise their voice in their poems. Equiano’s poems carry the joy of Christian salvation as in his memoir The Interesting Narrative; Jea’s poems, composed as hymns, are as fervent as his sermonising; and Wedderburn’s verses bristle with a militancy and revolutionary zeal, marking him as a forbear to the political poets we will encounter later in this exhibition.