Bombay Africans 1850-1910 was exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society as part of the wider ‘Crossing Continents: Connecting Communities’ project, which with community partners aimed to develop new resources to advance the importance of geography. Based on the research of Clifford Pereira and with community consultation partners, Bombay Africans explored the histories of a group of African men who assisted British explorers such as John Hanning Speke, Richard Burton and David Livingstone on mapping expeditions in East Africa in the late 19th century. The name 'Bombay Africans' was given to Africans who had been rescued from the slave ships operating in the Indian Ocean. The exhibition examined the roles of these men in the anti-slavery movement and in Christian organisations like the Church Missionary Society. Focusing on the East Coast of Africa and the slave trade routes in the Indian Ocean, the exhibition also explored enslavement, forced migration, liberation and the African diaspora in the Asian subcontinent.
The Historic Dockyard Chatham opened a new exhibition in 2007 to look at the history of Chatham in the context of the transatlantic slave trade. The exhibition examined dockyard ‘founder’ John Hawkins - the leader of the first English expedition to transport West African people to the Americas - the work of Chatham-built ships in policing the slave trade post-abolition, and the hidden history of people from ethnic minorities who served in the Royal Navy or worked in the naval dockyard, from the 18th century to the post-Second World War period. The exhibition also looked at Chatham's links to Indian shipbuilding. HMS Gannet (1878), preserved alongside two other historic warships at The Historic Dockyard, is the only surviving British warship to have taken part in the suppression of the slave trade off the coast Africa during the 19th century. Between 1885 and 1888 Gannet undertook anti-slavery patrols in the Red Sea, intercepting Arab slave traders operating off the East Coast of Africa, around the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.