SCHOOLCHILDREN in East Lancashire are being taught the repugnance of the slave trade by reading ledgers that listed people as stock.

Neil Sayer, Lancashire County Council’s archive access manager, revealed how pupils begin to understand the stark truth of the commodification of humans by seeing the documents.

He spoke after documents released today showed the going price for an “able field Negro” slave in 1797 was £140, according to papers belonging to an English plantation owner.

Disturbing documents now in the hands of researchers also show that a 45-year-old cook and washerwoman named Castile was valued at just £60.

Mr Sayer said: “We have a lease of a plantation in Antigua involving a Lancashire family.

“The lease includes all the machinery such copper boiling equipment and notes, following the animals used to work the machinery, the slaves who were leased as part of this transactions.

“The document itself is quite shocking and I’ve used it with school groups to that effect – it brings home the reality of the slavery system like no text book can.”

The 1797 list, described as “Mr John Bloomfield’s Negroes”, catalogues 35 men and 19 women as well as children as young as 14 who were to be sold as slaves.

In total the 54 adult slaves were priced at £5,100 – equivalent to around £500,000 today.

The collection of letters and papers acquired by St John’s College, Cambridge University, contains the business exchanges of 18th century English landowner Philip Perrin.

It includes the names, ages and prices of slaves to be bought for Mr Perrin’s sugar plantation near Kingston, Jamaica.

Kathryn McKee, special collections librarian at St John’s College, said: “Though appalling to modern eyes, for those involved these were matter-of-fact business transactions; a routine part of the 18th Century .”