‘Prejudice’ exposed? Jane Austen’s links to slavery ‘interrogated’.

A museum dedicated to the “Pride & Prejudice” author, located at her old home in the Hampshire village of Chawton, is reportedly investigating the Austen family’s place in “Regency era colonialism,” as evidenced by Austen’s love of tea, clothing and other refinements.

Before father George Austen was a clergyman of a local parish, he was a trustee of an Antigua sugar plantation, where slaves from Africa worked the fields to cultivate the prized ingredient that would be part of the Austens’ tea habit.

The director of Jane Austen’s House museum, Lizzie Dunford, told the Telegraph that they intend to spotlight this little-discussed aspect of Austen’s personal story. “This is just the start of a steady and considered process of historical interrogation,” said Dunford.

“The slave trade and the consequences of Regency era Colonialism touched every family of means during the period. Jane Austen’s family were no exception,” Dunford continued. “As purchasers of tea, sugar and cotton, they were consumers of the products of the trade, and did also have closer links via family and friends.”

Despite Jane’s love of contemporary fashion and brews, scholars say her work in “Mansfield Park” and “Emma” bears evidence of her distaste for slavery. In light of this, curators are also planning a display dubbed “Black Lives Matter to Jane Austen,” to highlight her abolitionist references.

Read all: nypost/prejudice-exposed-jane-austens-links-to-slavery-interrogated/