essay for english paper

Sample Essays

The breadth of Georgetown’s core curriculum means that students are required to write for a wide variety of academic disciplines. Below, we provide some student samples that exhibit the key features the most popular genres. When reading through these essays, we recommend paying attention to their 

1. Structure (How many paragraphs are there? Does the author use headers?) 

2. Argument (Is the author pointing out a problem, and/or proposing a solution?) 

3. Content (Does the argument principally rely on facts, theory, or logic?) and 

4. Style (Does the writer use first person? What is the relationship with the audience?)

Philosophy Paper

• Singer on the Moral Status of Animals

Theology Paper

• Problem of God
• Jewish Civilization
• Sacred Space and Time
• Phenolphthalein in Alkaline Solution

History Paper

• World History

Literature Review

Comparative Analysis 

Policy Brief

• Vaccine Manufacturing

White Paper

Critical Analysis

• Ignatius Seminar

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• Writing Tips

How to Write Top-Graded Essays in English

5-minute read

• 7th December 2022

Writing English papers and essays can be challenging at first, but with the right tools, knowledge, and resources, you can improve your writing skills. In this article, you’ll get some tips and tricks on how to write a top-graded essay in English.

Have you heard the saying “practice makes perfect”? Well, it’s wrong. Practice does make improvement, though. Whether you’re taking an English composition class, studying for the IELTS or TOEFL , or preparing to study abroad, you can always find new ways to practice writing in English.

If you practice on a daily basis, you’ll be exercising the skills you know while challenging yourself to learn even more. There are many ways you can practice writing in English daily:

• Keep a daily journal.
• Write practice essays.
• Do creative writing exercises .

Read in English

The best way to improve your writing is to read English books, news articles, essays, and other media. By reading the writing of other authors (whether they’re native or non-native speakers), you’re exposing yourself to different writing styles and learning new vocabulary. Be sure to take notes when you’re reading so you can write down things you don’t know (e.g., new words or phrases) or sentences or phrases you like.

For example, maybe you need to write a paper related to climate change. By reading news articles or research papers on this topic, you can learn relevant vocabulary and knowledge you can use in your essay.

FluentU has a great article with a list of 20 classic books you can read in English for free.

Immerse Yourself in English

If you don’t live in an English-speaking country, you may be thinking, “How can I immerse myself in English?” There are many ways to overcome this challenge. The following strategies are especially useful if you plan to study or travel abroad:

• Follow YouTube channels that focus on learning English or that have English speakers.
• Use social media to follow English-speaking accounts you are interested in.
• Watch movies and TV shows in English or use English subtitles when watching your favorite shows.
• Participate in your English club or salon at school to get more practice.
• Become an English tutor at a local school (teaching others is the best way to learn).

By constantly exposing yourself to English, you will improve your writing and speaking skills.

Visit Your Writing Center

If you’re enrolled at a university, you most likely have a free writing center you can use if you need help with your assignments. If you don’t have a writing center, ask your teacher for help and for information on local resources.

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Use Your Feedback

After you submit an English writing assignment, you should receive feedback from your teacher on how you did. Use this feedback to your advantage. If you haven’t been getting feedback on your writing, ask your teacher to explain what issues they are seeing in your writing and what you could do to improve.

Be Aware of Your Common Writing Mistakes

If you review your feedback on writing assignments, you might notice some recurring mistakes you are making. Make a list of common mistakes you tend to make when writing, and use it when doing future assignments. Some common mistakes include the following:

• Grammar errors (e.g., not using articles).
• Incorrect vocabulary (e.g., confusing however and therefore ).
• Spelling mistakes (e.g., writing form when you mean from ).
• Missing essay components (e.g., not using a thesis statement in your introduction).
• Not using examples in your body paragraphs.
• Not writing an effective conclusion .

This is just a general list of writing mistakes, some of which you may make. But be sure to go through your writing feedback or talk with your teacher to make a list of your most common mistakes.

Use a Prewriting Strategy

So many students sit down to write an essay without a plan. They just start writing whatever comes to their mind. However, to write a top-graded essay in English, you must plan and brainstorm before you begin to write. Here are some strategies you can use during the prewriting stage:

• Freewriting
• Concept Mapping

For more detailed information on each of these processes, read “5 Useful Prewriting Strategies.”

Follow the Writing Process

All writers should follow a writing process. However, the writing process can vary depending on what you’re writing. For example, the process for a Ph.D. thesis is going to look different to that of a news article. Regardless, there are some basic steps that all writers should follow:

• Understanding the assignment, essay question, or writing topic.
• Planning, outlining, and prewriting.
• Writing a thesis statement.
• Writing your essay.
• Revising and editing.

Writing essays, theses, news articles, or papers in English can be challenging. They take a lot of work, practice, and persistence. However, with these tips, you will be on your way to writing top-graded English essays.

If you need more help with your English writing, the experts at Proofed will proofread your first 500 words for free!

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Tips for Reading an Assignment Prompt

Asking analytical questions, introductions, what do introductions across the disciplines have in common, anatomy of a body paragraph, transitions, tips for organizing your essay, counterargument, conclusions.

How to Write the Perfect Essay

06 Feb, 2024 | Blog Articles , English Language Articles , Get the Edge , Humanities Articles , Writing Articles

You can keep adding to this plan, crossing bits out and linking the different bubbles when you spot connections between them. Even though you won’t have time to make a detailed plan under exam conditions, it can be helpful to draft a brief one, including a few key words, so that you don’t panic and go off topic when writing your essay.

If you don’t like the mind map format, there are plenty of others to choose from: you could make a table, a flowchart, or simply a list of bullet points.

Discover More

Thanks for signing up, step 2: have a clear structure.

Think about this while you’re planning: your essay is like an argument or a speech. It needs to have a logical structure, with all your points coming together to answer the question.

Start with the basics! It’s best to choose a few major points which will become your main paragraphs. Three main paragraphs is a good number for an exam essay, since you’ll be under time pressure. 

If you agree with the question overall, it can be helpful to organise your points in the following pattern:

• YES (agreement with the question)
• AND (another YES point)
• BUT (disagreement or complication)

If you disagree with the question overall, try:

• AND (another BUT point)

For example, you could structure the Of Mice and Men sample question, “To what extent is Curley’s wife portrayed as a victim in Of Mice and Men ?”, as follows:

• YES (descriptions of her appearance)
• AND (other people’s attitudes towards her)
• BUT (her position as the only woman on the ranch gives her power as she uses her femininity to her advantage)

If you wanted to write a longer essay, you could include additional paragraphs under the YES/AND categories, perhaps discussing the ways in which Curley’s wife reveals her vulnerability and insecurities, and shares her dreams with the other characters. Alternatively, you could also lengthen your essay by including another BUT paragraph about her cruel and manipulative streak.

Of course, this is not necessarily the only right way to answer this essay question – as long as you back up your points with evidence from the text, you can take any standpoint that makes sense.

Step 3: Back up your points with well-analysed quotations

You wouldn’t write a scientific report without including evidence to support your findings, so why should it be any different with an essay? Even though you aren’t strictly required to substantiate every single point you make with a quotation, there’s no harm in trying.

A close reading of your quotations can enrich your appreciation of the question and will be sure to impress examiners. When selecting the best quotations to use in your essay, keep an eye out for specific literary techniques. For example, you could highlight Curley’s wife’s use of a rhetorical question when she says, a”n’ what am I doin’? Standin’ here talking to a bunch of bindle stiffs.” This might look like:

The rhetorical question “an’ what am I doin’?” signifies that Curley’s wife is very insecure; she seems to be questioning her own life choices. Moreover, she does not expect anyone to respond to her question, highlighting her loneliness and isolation on the ranch.

Other literary techniques to look out for include:

• Tricolon – a group of three words or phrases placed close together for emphasis
• Tautology – using different words that mean the same thing: e.g. “frightening” and “terrifying”
• Parallelism – ABAB structure, often signifying movement from one concept to another
• Chiasmus – ABBA structure, drawing attention to a phrase
• Polysyndeton – many conjunctions in a sentence
• Asyndeton – lack of conjunctions, which can speed up the pace of a sentence
• Polyptoton – using the same word in different forms for emphasis: e.g. “done” and “doing”
• Alliteration – repetition of the same sound, including assonance (similar vowel sounds), plosive alliteration (“b”, “d” and “p” sounds) and sibilance (“s” sounds)
• Anaphora – repetition of words, often used to emphasise a particular point

Don’t worry if you can’t locate all of these literary devices in the work you’re analysing. You can also discuss more obvious techniques, like metaphor, simile and onomatopoeia. It’s not a problem if you can’t remember all the long names; it’s far more important to be able to confidently explain the effects of each technique and highlight its relevance to the question.

Step 4: Be creative and original throughout

Anyone can write an essay using the tips above, but the thing that really makes it “perfect” is your own unique take on the topic. If you’ve noticed something intriguing or unusual in your reading, point it out – if you find it interesting, chances are the examiner will too!

Creative writing and essay writing are more closely linked than you might imagine. Keep the idea that you’re writing a speech or argument in mind, and you’re guaranteed to grab your reader’s attention.

It’s important to set out your line of argument in your introduction, introducing your main points and the general direction your essay will take, but don’t forget to keep something back for the conclusion, too. Yes, you need to summarise your main points, but if you’re just repeating the things you said in your introduction, the body of the essay is rendered pointless.

Think of your conclusion as the climax of your speech, the bit everything else has been leading up to, rather than the boring plenary at the end of the interesting stuff.

To return to Of Mice and Men once more, here’s an example of the ideal difference between an introduction and a conclusion:

Introduction

In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men , Curley’s wife is portrayed as an ambiguous character. She could be viewed either as a cruel, seductive temptress or a lonely woman who is a victim of her society’s attitudes. Though she does seem to wield a form of sexual power, it is clear that Curley’s wife is largely a victim. This interpretation is supported by Steinbeck’s description of her appearance, other people’s attitudes, her dreams, and her evident loneliness and insecurity.

Overall, it is clear that Curley’s wife is a victim and is portrayed as such throughout the novel in the descriptions of her appearance, her dreams, other people’s judgemental attitudes, and her loneliness and insecurities. However, a character who was a victim and nothing else would be one-dimensional and Curley’s wife is not. Although she suffers in many ways, she is shown to assert herself through the manipulation of her femininity – a small rebellion against the victimisation she experiences.

Both refer back consistently to the question and summarise the essay’s main points. However, the conclusion adds something new which has been established in the main body of the essay and complicates the simple summary which is found in the introduction.

Hannah is an undergraduate English student at Somerville College, University of Oxford, and has a particular interest in postcolonial literature and the Gothic. She thinks literature is a crucial way of developing empathy and learning about the wider world. When she isn’t writing about 17th-century court masques, she enjoys acting, travelling and creative writing. 

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How to Write an English Essay

Last Updated: March 31, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 1,637,261 times.

When taking English courses in high school and college, you'll likely be assigned to write essays. While writing an essay for an English class may seem overwhelming, it does not have to be. If you give yourself plenty of time to plan out and develop your essay, however, then you will not have to stress about it.

Sample Essays

Getting Started

• Your instructor will expect to see a well-crafted thesis early on in your essay. Place your thesis at the end of your first paragraph.
• If you don't understand how to write a thesis, ask your instructor for help. This is an important concept that will keep coming up in courses where you have to write papers.

• Telling a personal anecdote
• Citing a surprising fact or statistic
• Overturning a common misconception
• Challenging the reader to examine her own preconceptions

• You can create a numbered outline using a word processor or just put it on paper.
• Don’t worry about being too detailed when you create your outline. Just try to get the major ideas on paper.
• A really solid outline helps you figure out how you're going to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Drafting the Essay

• Make sure that you have your outline handy as well. You can build on your outline by expanding on each of the points in the order that they are listed in.

• Think of the topic sentence as a way to tell readers what you'll talk about in the rest of the paragraph. You don’t need to summarize the whole paragraph—just provide readers with a taste.
• For example, in a paragraph that describes Okonkwo’s rise and fall in Things Fall Apart, you might begin with something like: “Okonkwo starts out as a poor young man, but then rises to a position of wealth and status.”

• Returning to the invention stage . This includes exercises such as freewriting, listing, or clustering. You can also revisit your notes and books to see if there's anything you missed or forgot.
• Visiting your school’s writing lab . You can find a writing lab on most college campuses. They are free to students and can help you improve your writing at any stage in the writing process.
• Talking to your instructor . Take advantage of your professor's office hours or one-on-one appointments. Meet with them and discuss ways that you can improve your essay before you hand it in.

• An MLA style works cited page starts on a new page at the end of the essay. Provide entries for each of the sources that you used. These entries should include the information necessary to allow the reader to find the source with ease. [7] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
• MLA style in-text (also called parenthetical) citations provide readers with the author’s last name the page number for the information. It's necessary to include an in-text citation for any information that you quote, summarize, or paraphrase from a source. It comes right after the sourced information, and it includes the author’s last name and page number in parentheses. [8] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

• Qualify or complicate the information in your essay
• Suggest a need for further research
• Speculate on how the future will change the current situation

Revising the Essay

• If possible, give yourself at least 5 days to work on your essay. Dedicate separate days to researching, crafting your thesis, outlining your ideas, drafting your paper, and making revisions.

• Have I answered the question in a satisfactory way?
• Do I have a clear thesis? Is my thesis the focus of my essay?
• Do I include adequate support for my argument? Is there anything else I could add?
• Is there a logic to my essay? Does one idea follow the next? If not, how might I improve the logic of my essay?

• Try swapping essays with a friend from class. You can read and comment on each other’s essays to make sure that both of you have done the best work possible.
• Make sure that you swap papers at least one day before the paper is due so that you will have time to correct any errors that your friend finds.

• As you read, correct any errors that you find and make a note of anything that you think could be improved, such as adding more details or clarifying the language.

Planning Your Essay

• Always ask your professor if you don't understand the assignment. It's important to have a clear idea of what they want before you start working on the assignment.

Aly Rusciano

“Think of your thesis as the point you're trying to prove in your essay. If the essay came with a prompt question, your one-sentence answer is your thesis.”

• A well-detailed answer that satisfies the assignment requirements
• A clear and direct piece of writing that is easy to follow
• A polished paper with no minor errors, such as typos or misspellings

• For example, if you are tasked with writing about a character in a book, then you will need to provide lots of details about that character. This will probably require rereading some passages of your book as well as revisiting your notes from class. [16] X Research source
• To ensure that your paper is easy to follow, you'll need to make sure that there's a logical order to your essay. Do this by creating an outline and checking your work for logic.
• Start early and give yourself lots of time for revision. Try to complete your first draft about one week before the paper is due.

• Freewriting . Write as much as you can without stopping. If you can’t think of anything, write “I can’t think of anything to write,” until something comes to mind. After you finish, go over what've written and underline or highlight any useful information for your essay.
• Listing . Make a list of all of the details and information that are relevant to the essay prompt. After you have listed everything that you can think of, read over it and circle the most important information for your essay.
• Clustering . Write your topic in the middle of the page, then branch out with other connected ideas. Circle the ideas and connect them to the main one with lines. Keep going until you can't do any more.

• Good sources to use for English essays include books, articles from scholarly journals, articles from trustworthy news sources (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.), and government or university sponsored web pages.
• Many instructors include “research quality” in their grading criteria, so including poor sources, such as blogs, may result in a poor grade.
• If you are not sure if a source is of good quality, ask your instructor or a librarian.

Expert Q&A

• If you choose to have someone critique your essay, try to find someone who fits your essay's target audience. You won't be able to improve your literary analysis of "To Kill a Mockingbird" if you hand it to someone who's never read it. Thanks Helpful 17 Not Helpful 5

• Don’t procrastinate on starting and developing your essay. Good writing takes time and careful planning. Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/thesis_statement_tips.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/introductions/
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/developing_an_outline/types_of_outlines.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/paragraphs_and_paragraphing/index.html
• ↑ https://opentextbc.ca/writingforsuccess/chapter/chapter-11-developing-a-convincing-argument/
• ↑ https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/mlacitation/intext
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_page_basic_format.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_in_text_citations_the_basics.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/argument_papers/index.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/proofreading/index.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/essay_writing/argumentative_essays.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/understanding_writing_assignments.html
• ↑ http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/second/en228/how_to_write_an_essay/
• ↑ http://writing.ku.edu/prewriting-strategies

About This Article

To write an English essay, start by collecting your notes and sources to brainstorm a thesis, also known as your main argument. Once you have an argument, begin your essay by writing a paragraph that introduces your topic and thesis. After the introduction, write out body paragraphs, which should each start with a topic sentence and develop your thesis by providing specific examples. Finally, finish your essay with a conclusory paragraph, then, edit it for grammar, clarity, and any filler content. For more, like how to write an outline, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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I've been a teacher for 27 years. When ChatGPT first came out, I was terrified; now, I let my students use it to write essays.

• When high school teacher Kelly Gibson first read about ChatGPT, she was terrified.
• But she's since chosen to embrace AI in the classroom, allowing students to use AI tools for essays.
• She said more educators will likely adapt to and implement AI into their teaching methods.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Kelly Gibson, 56, a teacher from Oregon, about her personal experience using ChatGPT in her classroom. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been a teacher for 27 years. I currently teach English at a small rural high school in Oregon.

Two years ago, I was on break for Thanksgiving, and a few former students got in touch with me unexpectedly, telling me about a new online tool called ChatGPT . One of them said students would be able to use it to cheat.

It made me nervous. I spent the next few days reading about ChatGPT and became terrified. The tool could generate an entire essay from a prompt I'd give to students.

I started learning how to use ChatGPT , and it got me thinking of how I could use it in my classroom. It had the potential to help students write while reinforcing their critical thinking skills.

Instead of spending all my time trying to catch students using AI to cheat , I've found ways to implement it in the classroom . I think educators will increasingly learn how to adapt to AI.

I started playing around with ChatGPT and wanted to use it in class

I experimented with ChatGPT over the holidays. I fed it essay prompts and saw it was able to generate arguments quickly.

Related stories

At that time, it was making basic mistakes. I gave it a prompt about the Shakespeare play " Much Ado About Nothing," and it produced quotes from "As You Like It." But I knew the technology would improve. I began to despair, thinking I'd have to reinvent myself as a teacher.

However, when I tried planning lessons and generating worksheets with ChatGPT, I saw how helpful it could be. I was having fun and wanted to help my students use it as a tool instead of to cheat.

I considered how to suggest uses for ChatGPT where students could still demonstrate their critical thinking skills. When I got back to school, I talked to the school's administrators and the tech specialist, asking permission to test out ChatGPT in the classroom , starting with my 12th-grade students.

Letting students use AI as a tool has been more helpful than trying to catch cheating

I began by walking students through experiments I'd done with ChatGPT. One activity involved getting them to write an introductory paragraph. I'd feed those paragraphs into AI, asking it to write an essay based on the introduction. Then, I'd ask students to edit and critique what the AI was capable of compared to their writing.

That was around January 2023, and my students were disappointed in the product. They felt the arguments it made were repetitive.

Nowadays, my students mostly use AI for editing. Once they've finished an essay, they'll run it through AI editing software to clean up sentence structure and ensure their tenses are aligned.

I've told the students I won't be checking for AI in their work. I've tried using programs that claim to detect AI writing , but they produce false positives and negatives. I tested something I wrote myself, and the detector told me it was 70% AI-generated .

There's a good chance students are getting away with using more AI than I want them to, but those who want to circumvent systems would have done so without AI, such as by having their big sisters in college help to write their papers.

It seems that students have embraced my message and understand AI can only take you so far. I've set assignments where they have to do their own thesis-creation and research prior to using the tools, and they seem to appreciate that combination.

I've seen some students feel less overwhelmed by longer writing assignments because they have a tool to help them. But I've seen other students use AI to their detriment by getting it to write their work and not editing it at all.

A fellow teacher had a number of students use AI on an assignment without permission. I suggested that she speak with each student to see if they could explain their work. Some had actually learned the information and were able to explain their essays in depth, while others failed at that task, and she asked them to redo the assignment.

I'm taking responsibility for making sure students are really learning. One way I assess their skills is by assigning handwritten in-class essays and take-home essays where they can access AI tools.

I'd guess that AI tools will be used more widely by teachers in the future

I've never received negative feedback from a parent about my methods. At our school, some teachers are trying to use ChatGPT as a tool for students, and some don't use it at all.

I believe every educator is at their best when using rules for the classroom that best fit their teaching style.

As an English teacher, I feel that not teaching students how to use this new tool would be like earlier days in my career when some educators didn't want students to use spellcheck. I also remember an outcry among teachers when SparkNotes became available online, but nowadays, teachers mostly don't worry about SparkNotes because we know how to teach around it and work with it.

I understand why some school districts previously responded by banning ChatGPT . This hit us without warning, so there's a lack of solid training for school districts to give to educators at this point. I'd guess that as the years go on, there'll be more training, and this will just be another tool under our belt.

It's hard to say what AI tools will look like a few years from now and whether they will stop being tools and start being a brain that impedes critical thinking.

My guess is that educators will use AI and other tools in the future to help students become better writers while working diligently to make them stronger thinkers and not dependent on AI for their thinking process.

Do you have a story about using AI at work that you want to share with Business Insider? Email [email protected]

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The Detached Papers: New records on the transatlantic slave trade on Discovery

Wednesday 13 November 2024 | Philippa Hellawell | Records and research | Comment

Content note: This blog highlights documents that contain racist language and descriptions of the conditions faced by enslaved Africans. Original language is preserved here to accurately represent our records and to help us fully understand the past.

Over the last few months, The National Archives has released over 8,000 new catalogue descriptions of documents related to the transatlantic slave trade.

We hold the records of the Royal African Company and its successor the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa. This collection is incredibly important nationally and internationally, as the Royal African Company transported more enslaved African men, women and children to the Americas than any other single institution in the history of the transatlantic slave trade. 1

The new material has been added to the catalogue through a project funded by The National Archives Strategic Research Fund. Given their historical significance, the project has started to create a listing of all the records in the Detached Papers of the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa.

What are the Detached Papers?

The Royal African Company collection runs from 1660 to 1820 and has a range of sub-series, including letter books, minute books, ledgers and the Detached Papers. The Detached Papers are a collection of 94 boxes of miscellaneous, loose papers from 1750 to 1820. They mainly include letters, inventories, accounts, receipts and the personal papers of the governors and merchants of the Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, which was set up after the Royal African Company was dissolved in 1750.

The Royal African Company received a royal charter in 1672, peaking in 1686 – when it embarked nearly 11,000 enslaved Africans on company ships in one year – it lost its monopoly in 1698 when individual traders were permitted to trade alongside them. 2 When it was eventually dissolved, the company’s assets were transferred to the Company of Merchants. The company were provided with an annual parliamentary stipend to manage and operate the coastal forts and protect British trading interests in the region.

Cataloguing people, subjects, and dates

Until now, the Detached Papers were only listed on Discovery, our online catalogue, by box, with no indication of their contents other than the date of the material. Now half of the collection has been described at item level, describing persons, subjects and dates for each individual document in these boxes. This has resulted in the identification of 8,035 items from 46 boxes. You can browse the listing on Discovery . The records are not digitised but are available to order and view in our Reading Rooms.

Lists of enslaved people in the collection

Among the diverse array of uncatalogued and miscellaneous material are lists of enslaved people, held as ‘castle slaves’ in the British forts along the west coast of Africa. While the Company of Merchants were not permitted to engage in the Atlantic slave trade as a corporation, they continued to use enslaved people to work the forts across the West African coast from Senegambia to the Bight of Benin. These men, women and children were often called ‘Castle Slaves’, a distinct form of enslaved labour, where people received a wage and some limited rights but were still considered property of the company.

The pictured document, T 70/1517/3, is just one of the many lists of enslaved people in the Detached Papers. Dated 30 October 1751, it lists 12 people – seven men and five women – who worked at Winneba Fort (in what is now Ghana), giving their name, age, wage, employment and ‘value to the company’. The Winneba list is one of the shorter ones; one from Cape Coast Castle in the same year lists 132 enslaved people, 60 of whom were children.

However, on this small scrap of paper, we can learn a bit more about the existence of the people whose freedom was stolen from them in the name of profit and trade. Yeow and Quoro were 31-year-old labourers, a bricklayer and carpenter, respectively, described as ‘ablemen’. In contrast, labourers Bagottee and Sapee were described as ‘superannuated’, meaning they were unable to work due to old age and were subsequently costing the company money. They were 89 and 84 years old. The same was written of Siby, a 54-year-old female sweeper.

Effebah was also a sweeper. She was 30 years old and described as a ‘lunatic at times’. One can only imagine what the experience of Effebah and her enslaved kinfolk might have been, and we have to question why the behaviour she presented was interpreted as ‘lunacy’ by her captors. Did she try to resist? Was she defiant? Was this the manifestation of the trauma of her enslavement? Among the reams of receipts and account books, it is important we do not lose sight of the people like Effebah whose lives were at the centre of this trade and the importance of the fragmentary details we can recover of their existence.

Stories of resistance

These lists are just one element of the Detached Papers. Letters make up the largest proportion of record type in the collection, offering unprecedented insight into the operations of the Company of Merchants.

One particularly powerful letter details the attempts of the enslaved Africans on the ship Commerce to resist their captors, stealing a knife from aboard the deck, and releasing themselves from their irons before then being coerced into submission. These perspectives are incredibly important for tracing histories of enslaved resistance and giving historical agency to those whose freedom was taken from them.

The men, women and children documented in the lists and similar documents in the Detached Papers are just a small proportion of the millions of Africans forcibly transported across the Atlantic to work on plantations in the Americas. The archival imprint of those whose legal freedom was stolen from them is so faint that even finding names buried in the heaps of bureaucratic paperwork is an important step in building a history of a people whose personal histories are rarely represented in the historic record.

You can find more records from the Detached Papers on Discovery or view other related records we hold in our transatlantic slavery collection gallery .

• William Pettigrew, Freedom’s Debt: The Royal African Company and the Politics of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1672-1752 (UNC Press, 2013), p. 11. ↩︎
• Slave Voyages database:  Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Database (slavevoyages.org)  (accessed 18/10/2024) ↩︎

Africa , discovery , slavery

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