The new permanent gallery will explore the relationships, connections and exchanges created between Britain, Africa and the Americas between 1600-1850 and look at the impact and legacy of empire on three continents.
Four main themes will reveal how geographical exploration and the navigation of the Atlantic opened up new trade routes from the early 17th-century onwards and brought Europeans into contact with different cultures, setting in motion a dynamic of conquest and exploitation, as well as trading and cultural exchanges.
 |  | A new and accurat map of the world drawn according to ye truest descriptions latest discoveries & best observations yt have been made by English or strangers. 1626. Image courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, London
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Called Exploration and Cultural Encounters; Trade and Commerce; Enslavement and War and Conflict, the four sections will showcase 220 objects from the Museum’s extensive collections including paintings, prints and drawings, decorative arts and ethnographic materials.
Included will be a 16th-century Spanish astrolabe discovered on the island of Valentia, in Co. Kerry, Ireland in 1845 and gold weights, fashioned in the form of muskets, used for weighing gold dust by the Akan people of Southern Ghana during the 18th and 19th century.
Also included is a North American shot pouch, made from moose and caribou skin, with porcupine quillwork embroidery and woven panels of triangles and rectangles – reflecting Métis, Cree and Chippewyan influences.
Whalebone craftwork. Image courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, London | |  |
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New material relating to the transatlantic slave trade will include a rare and detailed daily logbook from the slave schooner Juverna, written by Master Robert Lewis. It records the vessel’s maiden voyage between Liverpool, West Africa and Surinam during 1804-1805 and includes general observations on a classic Triangular Trade slaving expedition from England.
The new Atlantic Worlds gallery replaces the Museum’s former Trade and Empire gallery and is planned as one of a pair of complementary galleries. The partner gallery will examine the world of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and will replace the current Art and the Sea gallery. The development of this gallery will begin after the completion and opening of Atlantic Worlds and is due to open in 2009.
The gallery has been funded through the the DCMS/ Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund, Stavros Niarchos Foundation (In memory of Mary A. Dracopoulou), CHK Charities Limited, Dr Lee MacCormick-Edwards, the Kirby Laing Foundation and the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights.
