Introduction

Over the past decade, a growing number of British universities have begun publicly examining their historical connections to slavery, colonialism, and empire. Institutional inquiries at universities such as Glasgow, Aberdeen, St Andrews, Bristol, Cambridge, Kings College London, and University College London have revealed the extent to which colonial wealth and plantation economies contributed to the development of these institutions (Mullen & Newman, 2018; Lee, 2020; University of St Andrews, n.d; Otele et al, 2020; University of Cambridge, 2022; Guy and St Thomas' Foundation, 2021; University College London, n.d). Donations derived from slave ownership, profits from colonial commerce, and investments linked to imperial trade formed part of the financial infrastructure through which many universities expanded during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 

​The investigations have led to public apologies, memorialisation projects, and limited commitments toward reparative initiatives. While these developments represent an important acknowledgement of the historical entanglement between universities and empire, they raise deeper questions about the role universities themselves played in sustaining the intellectual architecture of colonial domination. British universities were not merely passive beneficiaries of imperial wealth; they were also central sites in which ideas about race, civilisation, hierarchy, and progress were produced and disseminated. 

This essay expands an argument briefly raised in my doctoral thesis, From Behind the Veil: Unveiling the Experiences of Black British-Born Males of African Heritage Navigating Psychotherapy Training Within a White-Dominated Culture (2025). While that research primarily examined the experiences of Black trainees navigating contemporary psychotherapy training institutions, it also noted the broader historical context in which Western knowledge institutions—including universities—developed within imperial structures. Due to the methodological focus and scope of the thesis, the discussion could only be addressed in a limited way. The present essay therefore extends that line of analysis by examining more directly the historical relationship between British universities and empire. 

Drawing on Africana intellectual traditions, this essay argues that colonialism functioned not only as an economic and political project but also as an epistemological and ontological one, shaping both the production of knowledge and the conceptual boundaries of what counts as human. Universities were not simply institutions that benefitted from imperial wealth; they were key sites in which the knowledge systems that justified colonial domination were produced, circulated, and institutionalised. From this perspective, contemporary institutional reckonings with slavery represent only a preliminary step forward confronting the deeper intellectual legacies of empire that continue to shape the academy. 

Empire and the Material Foundations of British Universities

The expansion of European empire during the eightieth and nineteenth centuries generated enormous wealth through systems of colonial trade and plantation labour. The transatlantic slave trade and the exploitation of enslaved labour across the Caribbean and the Americas played a central role in the development of Britain's economic power. Increasingly, historical scholarship has demonstrated that universities were directly connected to this imperial economy (Wilder, 2013; Wilder, 2019; Williams, 1944). 

Financial contributions from plantation owners, colonial merchants, and investors whose fortunes derived from enslaved labour helped finance university buildings, professorships, and institutional endowments. In some cases, individuals deeply involved in the slave economy became major benefactors of universities, leaving legacies that remain visible in the architecture, scholarships, and academic chairs that beer their names.(University College London, n.d). These connections illustrate the extent to which universities were embedded within the wider economic structures of empire. 

However, focusing solely on the financial dimensions of these relationships' risk obscuring the intellectual function universities performed within the colonial project. Colonial domination was not sustained by economic exploitation alone; it also required intellectual frameworks capable of legitimising conquest, hierarch, and racial domination (Born & Hammerstein-Robinson, 1998). 

Walter Rodney's  (1972) analysis of colonial development provides a useful starting point for understanding the relationship. In How Europe Undeveloped Africa, Rodney argues that colonial institutions—including education systems—were structured to serve the interests of imperial expansion. As he observes, "the colonial school system was designed to train Africans to assist in the exploitation of the continent" (Rodney, 1972, p. 263). While Rodney's analysis focuses primarily on colonial education within Africa, the intellectual foundations that sustained these systems were often produced within European universities themselves. 

Universities therefore functioned not only as beneficiaries of empire but also as producers of the knowledge systems that allowed colonial domination to appear, inevitable, and morally justified. 

Knowledge, Colonialism, and the Production of Hierarchies

Colonial expansion required more than military conquest and economic extraction. It also required intellectual frameworks capable of explaining and legitimising European domination over colonised peoples (Wilder, 2013; Born & Hammerstein-Robinson, 1998). Universities played a central role in producing these frameworks through the development of academic disciplines that sought to classify human societies according to hierarchies of civilisation and progress. 

Within these frameworks, colonised societies were often depicted as lacking political organisation, rational governance, or cultural sophistication. Such representations allowed colonial expansion to be framed as a benevolent civilising mission rather than as a system of domination and exploitation. Academic authority gave these narratives legitimacy, transforming ideological assumptions into seemingly objective knowledge.

​The moral contradictions underlying these claims were exposed by anti-colonial thinkers throughout the twentieth century. Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism (1972) remains one of the most powerful critiques of colonial ideology. Writing in the Aftermath of World War II, Césaire argued that colonial dominations revealed the hypocrisy at the heart of European civilisation. Rather than representing the triumph of progress and humanity, colonialism exposed the violence and brutality embedded within European modernity. As Césaire writes, colonial expansion ultimately "worked to decivilise the coloniser" (Césaire, 1972, p. 13). 

From this perspective, the intellectual frameworks produced within European universities played a crucial role in masking the violence of empire while presenting colonial domination as a form of civilisational progress. 

Language, Education, and Cultural Domination

The colonial production of knowledge also operated through language and education. Colonial education systems frequently prioritised European languages and intellectual traditions while marginalising indigenous cultures and epistemologies. Through education, colonial authorities sought to reshape cultural consciousness in ways that reinforced imperial power. 

Ngúgí wa Thiong'o describes this process as a form of cultural dominations operating at the level of consciousness. In Decolonising the Mind he argues that imperial power deploys what he calls a "cultural bomb," designed to destroy a people's confidence in their own heritage and intellectual traditions. As Thiong'o writes, "the biggest weapon wielded daily, and unleashed by imperialism against the collective defiance is the cultural bomb" (Thiong'o, 1986, p. 3). The purpose of this cultural domination was to produce subjects who internalised the superiority of European cultural domination and knowledge while distancing themselves from their own histories and intellectual traditions. 

Universities played a crucial role in sustaining this hierarchy of knowledge. Through curricula that privileged European intellectual traditions, academic institutions reinforce the idea that legitimate knowledge emerged primarily from Western philosophical and scientific traditions. Alternative epistemologies—particularly those rooted in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean—were frequently marginalised or treated as objects of anthropological study rather than as sources of knowledge in their own right. 

Coloniality and the Overrepresentation of "Man" 

​The persistent of these epistemological and ontological hierarchies can be understood through Sylvia Wynter's analysis of the colonial construction of the human. Wynter asserts that Western modernity produced a particular conception of the human—what she describes as "Man"— that came to represent itself as the universal form of humanity. As she explains, modern Western society established "a conception of the human, Man, which overrepresent itself as if it were the human itself" (Wynter, 2003, p. 260). 

Within this framework, European ways of knowing and being were universalised while other epistemological traditions were marginalised or excluded. The dominance of Western intellectual traditions within universities reflects the persistence of this epistemological structure. Even in the so-called postcolonial era, academic institutions continue to operate within frameworks that emerged alongside European expansion. 

This persistence has been described by scholars as the coloniality of knowledge, referring to the ongoing influence of colonial epistemologies within contemporary systems of knowledge production. Universities remain central institutions through which these epistemological hierarchies are reproduced, even as they increasing acknowledge their historical connections to empire. 

Institutional Reckonings and Their Limits

In recent years, universities have begun confronting aspects of their colonial histories. Institutional reports documenting financial connections to slavery and colonial wealth have prompted public apologies, scholarship programmes, and commemorative initiatives. While these measures represent an important recognition of historical injustice, they also reveal the limitations of responses that focus primarily on historical acknowledgement. 

Addressing the legacies of empire requires more than documenting financial ties to slavery. It requires confronting the epistemological structures through which colonial knowledge continues to shape academic institutions. Universities must therefore consider how their curricula, research priorities, and disciplinary frameworks continue to reflect intellectual traditions shaped by colonial modernity. 

Without such reflection, institutional apologies risk functioning as symbolic gestures rather than meaningful transformations. The deeper challenge lies in reconsidering the foundations upon which academic knowledge itself has been constructed. 

Conclusion

The historical connections between British universities and slavery are increasingly well documented. Yet, the significance of these connections extends beyond financial entanglements. Universities were not simply beneficiaries of imperial wealth; they were central institutions in the intellectual project that legitimised colonial domination. 

Through the production of knowledge, universities contributed to the development of epistemological frameworks that positioned Europe as the universal centre of civilisation and humanity. These frameworks helped sustain the ideological foundations of empire even as they obscured the violence upon which colonial expansion depended. 

Extending an argument briefly raised within my doctoral research, this essay has sought to situate universities within the broader colonial architecture of knowledge production. A genuine reckoning with empire therefore requires not only historical acknowledgement but also critical interrogation of the epistemological and ontological foundations upon which the modern academy's built. Only through such reflection can universities begin to move beyond the intellectual structures inherited from colonial modernity and toward what Mignolo (2017) called pluriverality, an otherwise understanding of knowledge and human experience. 


About this essay

This essay forms a part of the Afrolantica Series, an ongoing collection of reflections exploring race knowledge, culture through Africana intellectual traditions. 


References

Césaire, A. (1972). Discourse on colonialism (J. Pinkham, Trans). Monthly Review Press. (Original work published 1995)

Mignolo, W. D. (2017). Coloniality is far from over, and so must be decoloniality. Afterfall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, 43, 38-45.

Mckenzie, D.T. (2025). From behind the veil: Unveiling the experiences of Black British-Born males of African heritage navigating psychotherapy training within a white-dominated culture (Doctoral thesis). 

Núguí wa Thiong'o. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. James Currey. 

Rodney, W. (1972). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications. 

Wilder, S. C. (2013). Ebony and Ivy: Race slavery, and the troubled history of America's Universities. Bloomsbury Press. 

Wynter, S. (2003). Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Towards the human, after Man, its overrepresentation—An argument. The New Continental Review, 3(3), 257-337. 


Further Reading

The following reports and texts offer important insights into the historical entanglements between universities, empire, and the colonial production of knowledge. 

Otele. O., Stone. R., Aboderin, I., Birdi, A., Ojeme, V., O'Grady, A., & Tilkly, L. (2020). The University of Bristol: Our legacies of Slavery. University of Bristol. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/university/documents/university-of-bristol-legacies-of-slavery-report.pdf
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University of St Andrews. (n.d.). Exploring the university’s historic links to slavery.
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/english/news/title-273410-en.php
University of Bristol. (2022). Legacies of Slavery Project. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/university/anti-racism-at-bristol/university-slavery/legacies/

University College London. (2010-present). Legacies of British Slave-Ownership Database. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/history/research/research-projects-and-centres/centre-study-legacies-british-slavery-cslbs/cslbs-projects-and-partners/legacies-british-slave-ownership

University of St Andrews. (2025). Legacies of Empire, 1700-1900. https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/english/news/title-273410-en.php#:~:text=The%20University%20has%20announced%20the,supported%20British%20colonialism%20and%20imperialism.

University of Glasgow. (2018). Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow. https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_607547_smxx.pdf

Lee, M (2020, September 16). Exploring the University's historic links to slavery. University of Aberdeen. http://www.abdn.ac.uk/students/student-channel/blog/exploring-the-universitys-historic-links-to-slavery/

​University of Cambridge. (2022). Advisory Group on Legacies of Enslavement Report. https://www.legaciesofenslavement.cam.ac.uk/research-and-activities/cambridge-legacies-enslavement-reports/advisory-group-legacies-enslavement



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