With the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the infamous slave trade approaching in 2007, BBC South Today followed Bill Drayton on a remarkable journey from Christchurch to explore his family's roots.

Bill had known he had ancestors who lived in America in the late 18th century – and that they had used slaves on their rice plantations. But with the next year's 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in mind, he made an emotional and revealing journey to Charleston in South Carolina. This is his account of his trip as he tried to come to terms with his family's complex past.


Read Sarah Burbedge's report and watch the BBC South Today films

This joint reflection was filmed at the site of the Slave Market in Zanzibar, now the island’s Anglican Cathedral, during the recent Anglican Primates Meeting.

The Archbishops were shown two small preserved slave pits, where up to 175 men, women and children were held in appalling conditions, chained and in darkness, often without food and water. Dr Sentamu, Archbishop of York, spent some time at a memorial to the slaves which features some of the original chains used when the market was operating.

View the Archbishops' reflections on the slave pits in Zanzibar

The Zong Massacre was an infamous mass-killing of African slaves that took place in 1781 on the Zong, a British slave ship owned by James Gregson and colleagues in a Liverpool slave-trading firm.

The resulting court case, not by the authorities to bring a charge of mass-murder against the ship-owners but a civil action by the ship-owners seeking compensation from the insurers to compensate the slave-traders for their lost "cargo", was a landmark in the battle against the African Slave Trade of the eighteenth century.

View a short film on the arrival of the Zong as a replica slave ship with exhibition on board.