The UK Has Just Unearthed New 'Top Secret' Colonial-Era Government Files

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has located a new cache of colonial-era government documents, VICE News has learned.

The documents, some with "Top Secret" classifications and tantalizing subject titles, originate in the Colonial Office — the long-ago-disbanded government department that oversaw the colonies of the British Empire.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) confirmed to VICE News that the files were located last year, during an audit of government offices that revealed a staggering 170,000 historic files which had never been made public. Some are long overdue for release, and have been held unlawfully, in violation of the UK Public Records Act.

The discovery of the colonial-era documents is likely to arouse unease among historians — some of whom have accused the government in recent years of purposefully suppressingdamning material from Britain's Imperial days.