[2] The drum is a reminder of all three continents' involvement in the estimated twelve million people transported across the Atlantic Ocean as part of the transatlantic slave trade.

The drum was made in the Ghana region of West Africa between 1700 and 1745, and is presumed to have travelled to America on board a slave ship.

So it is presumed that the drum was either brought by a member of the crew or possibly by a son of the African chief who had sold the enslaved people for transportation.

Sloane had travelled through Jamaica and had observed at first hand enslaved people playing instruments including those that were to evolve into the banjo.

Sloane's catalogue records this item as "drum made of a hollowed tree carved the top being brac'd wt.

This drum was chosen to be featured in A History of the World in 100 Objects, a series of radio programmes that started in 2010 as a collaboration between the BBC and the British Museum.

[11] The series, hosted by Hartwig Fischer, intended to highlight objects in the British Museum collection that show how people of the past have faced major challenges.