George III sterling silver tea pot

Daniel Pontifex, English, 1768 - 1826 · 1800

This silver teapot represents the deadly plantation economy in the New World that satisfied the international demand for sugar, which became a staple in the English tea industry. It is also indicative of the financial success that sugar brought to prosperous slave owners, financiers, slave traders, sugar merchants, and the lifestyle maintained by sugar consumers in the United States. Sugar, Britain’s largest import, was also the focus of one of the first anti-slavery boycotts after the abolition bill was rejected by British Parliament in 1791. The boycott attempted to put economic pressure on the slave-dependent industry of sugar, hastening the end of the trade.