Matthew Mitchell

Matthew David Mitchell is Associate Professor of History at the University of the South, teaching British and Atlantic history with focus on commercial exchanges and slavery. His scholarship examines eighteenth-century British slave trading networks and colonial economies.

Education:

• Ph.D. in History, University of Pennsylvania
• M.Litt, University of St Andrews
• B.A., University of Washington

Mitchell's book The Prince of Slavers (2020) investigates Humphry Morice, Britain's largest slave trader in the early eighteenth century who transported over 30,000 Africans. Using Bank of England archives, Mitchell analyzes how Morice's innovations advanced the slave trade while inflicting mass suffering.

Additional research explores Royal African Company operations, including cloth procurement from English manufacturers for African markets, and intercultural contract rituals. He has published on the Duke of Chandos's corporate takeover of the Royal African Company and uses of fetish-oaths in trade agreements.

Mitchell teaches courses including Atlantic Britons, British Reformations, and Five Centuries of Atlantic Slavery. He serves as faculty adviser for Phi Alpha Theta and on the Tennessee State Board of Education Social Studies Standards Review.