Corrine Fowler: My writing on colonialism made me a hate figure – so I replied to my trolls

I come back to add my favourite question: what is the NT actually doing about these historic wrongs? Options might include:

Setting up a housing project on NT property
Giving free memberships to Black and Minority Ethnic people
Sponsoring university scholarships for Black and Minority Ethnic people
Offering paid internships in fields like conservatorship or biodiversity for Black and Minority Ethnic young people.

I am not saying it is the best charity out there - it is just the one that came to mind - but the NT could partner with someone like Mission 44, Sir Lewis Hamilton's charity. Annual report below:

M44ARDesignConceptlandscape1920x1080Web-compressed.pdf (mission44.org)

I know this (I studied economic and social history), which is why I object to being 'educated'. This is trade and it is what made for prosperity, not just in Europe (where there were consumers) but also in the places those products came from - the growers made a profit as well. 'Compelled' is an emotive word. A farmer will look at the market and make a decision as to what he will grow. Sainsburys buys organic strawberries, so I will grow organic strawberries rather than some other crop Sainsburys does not buy. This is responding to a trading market. Yes, the flag of empire follows the ship of trade - sometimes. But that is not the be-all and end-all of the product or its use. That can be explored in social custom, and how tea ceased to be a luxury good whereas oysters - which were food for the poor - did become a luxury good, and oyster farmers or fishermen responded accordingly. I noted in the Guardian article about Corrinne Fowler's report emotive connotations given to trade, e.g. 'colonial' trade and making money out of trade, e.g. 'lucrative' trade. I would like to know who bothers to buy or sell who does not want to make some profit on the deal, but 'lucrative' has the suggestion of 'profiteering' a word more applicable currently to energy companies who are making exhorbitant profits, clearly not putting up prices to match the extra they are paying for oil or gas, but massively increasing the price because of demand - people cannot do without what they are selling (which is why I support the re-nationalisation of utilities). One of the ways anti-slavers put pressure on the British government was to stop using sugar - something they could do, since sugar is not a necessity. I agree that producers are seduced into growing 'cash crops' such as sugar or tobacco so that a country can cease to be self-sufficient in foodcrops, but although being self-sufficient is very important so is development, which can come about by some producers exporting a crop no-one is much interested in at home. That's how markets work - I don't like it but I understand it. The NT obv. are a bit unclear.

@Grammarnut : "I get the feeling from Fowler's study that I am being 'educated' and I do not appreciate that. "
Having dived into the first lessons of Fowler's Futurelearn course, my impression is different.
We are preaented with various items from a country house, that are not "from here": Tea, birds of paradise (real or as drawings, drapings,etc.), a nutmeg grater, and a discussion between an NT historian and an NT guide with various specialists concerning the item at hand.
Starting from that, the group then discusses the item. Regarding tea, we noticed that tea trade started before there even was an empire or colonies. You could basically say that tea was one of the roots of colonialism, as the demand in the 1500s and 1600s rose sharply, so that the trading companies were compelled to find more sources, and in the end compelled local producers to change crops to tea.
Also, the British habit of Afternoon Tea, stemming from the time when tea still was a luxury good, and presented accordingly, with expensive porcelain and lots of special finger food.

These are the things you find all over Europe in the houses of nobility and upper class. They could afford it, so they bought it. Even the trade didn't require a colony or direct use of slaves. In Germany, sugar and rum were traded from the 1500s on. But they required colonies to exist somewhere to be an affordable luxury. Tea only became a drink for everyone, once the production in the source countries had been changed to primarily feed the European market.

Exactly this.

I've certainly noticed this kind of trend in my children's education, (not in the UK.) My daughter, who is 16, this year is studying history in a more serious way for the first time. It's very very focused on slavery. Which was never a huge part of the economy here, because of the type of industrial activity that dominated.

What I've found very odd though is they seem to have learned very little about even the black groups that migrated here, and nothing about anyone else. When I was in school, in the bad old days when supposedly we didn't spend enough time on these things, we learned quite explicitly about the migration of several distinct groups of blacks, where they came from, where they settled and why, and in some instances why they left and where they went. We also learned about English, Scottish, Irish, French,and German settlers, and something about people like Eastern Europeans who went to other parts of the country but not so much our own region. We covered this between about ages 12 and 15.

My daughter now knows a fair bit about slavery in the American south, though not much about how that slave trade started, or slavery historically in general, and nothing about the actual peoples who settled where we live. I was shocked to learn that hadn't even covered where settlers here had come from at all, apart from "Europe."

I think a lot of the talk about adding balance for "the first time" to history education is pretty much bs.

The thing is , it's not just a 'mansion experience'.

I've been to Rudyard Kiplings home, Winston Churchill's, Agatha Christie's, Dame Ellen Terry's, the D'Oyly Carte's houses. These people led amazing lives, their homes are fascinating, their gardens are stunning, the history of the places where they are is fascinating and when my boys were small it was a safe place for them to really run around outside (most of them have lots of stuff laid on for children).

I do't really understand why you would get involved in an organization like the NT if you weren't interested in the houses?

If no one was going to see them that would be one thing, but that's clearly not the case. Many people love them.

Excellent summary of NT magazine, badskiingmum.
I’ve never read it but your description sounds authentic.

I have always found the NT magazine rather ‘scattered’ in what it communicates, as if it isn’t quite sure what it is or whom it’s talking to:

’Secret letters give new insights into passionate LBTQ+ lives at Toffington Hall’.

‘We examine the restoration of a fascinating treasure trove of Queen Anne chamber pots’

’Member enjoys scone tour of every NT site in England’

’Make this gluten free bird feeder for your garden!’

The NT always seems desperate to show how diverse its membership is in its materials - yet whenever I go to a property it seems to be almost entirely 60+ white couples, pairs of 60+ white women and young families, happily mooching around looking at the place and eating scones.

In terms of exploitation, while the NT are absolutely right to raise the issue of slavery, they might be better off first asking the most basic question - where did the land come from? I suspect a lot of it had to do with the Enclosure Acts and that’s why a lot of people’s ancestors lived rather miserable and precarious lives.

I think anyone entering an NT property (of the majority) know some sort of social exploitation was required to gain the wealth to build the houses. People aren't stupid.

There are other museums that explore the conditions of the working class and they are fascinating as well. Is it a little patronising to expect people to have to be educated when they enter these properties to appreciate their beauty as much as their heritage?

this is a a great thread and I have learned a great deal. There are so many informed posts and I would expect members of the NT to have some interest in history.

I wonder to what extent a new perspective of colonionism is creeping into school education? There seems to be quite a large chunk of my daughter's year 8 syllabus devoted to slavery and certainly I think is given a disproportionate prominence in terms of British history at the time. British history over that period is vast and nuanced I think she is being given a disservice with quite a wide detour into transatlantic slavery.

There was quite a large essay she had to do which had the aim of her minimising white abolitionist roles in ending slavery and instead focusing on slave revolts identifying the heroes of them. No doubt this is an important subject but so much emphasis was placed on slave revolts that I think an opportunity was missed to educate her in one of the myriad other issues at the time. I also got the impression that she was meant to view famous abolitionists as 'white saviours' and their historical acclaim has been exagerrated.

I can see how the NT is possibly part of a greater trend to maybe a distorted view of our rich historical heritage.

Exactly this. The impression given is that Europeans stormed into Africa and abducted millions of random people living peaceful lives, when in fact they were trading existing slaves who were already enslaved by fellow Africans!

Europeans were among the first to stop slavery. Britain's national debt for freeing every single slave in its empire was so great, that we only stopped repayments in 2014. So I will not hear anything of British people being "privileged" from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. We've suffered for it.

On the other hand, some Arab countries didn't outlaw it until the 1960's (and slavery of non-Muslims is explicitly permitted in Islam), and pygmy tribes in Africa had to go to the UN in 2016 for help because their average-sized neighbours were enslaving them (who described it as a "time-honoured tradition").

Arab colonialism in Africa violently wiped out indigenous ways of life in almost the whole of north half of the continent. Arabs enslaved four times more African people than Europeans did.

Meanwhile British colonialism is trashed as racist for saying they wanted to stamp out Barbarianism from Africa, leaving modern people with the impression they wanted to do away with harmless local customs. In fact, they were referring explicitly to the endemic trade in slaves.

The word "Barbarianism" refers to the Barbary pirates: Arab pirates and slave raiders who terrorized Europe for centuries, travelling as far north as Iceland to abduct Europeans and sell them into slavery across the Arab world. They massacred entire cities and sold about one million Europeans into slavery. We never hear about this, nor the Ottoman slave trade that went on organised raids into eastern Europe to abduct millions of white Christians, including selling young girls and women into sex slavery.

Didn’t the NT Director General describe the Trust’s country houses as an ‘outdated mansion experience’?
She evidently dislikes the houses and what they stood for but they have to be maintained and kept open so I suppose her way of expressing her dislike is to show the former owners in a bad light.

No-one is claiming there were no empires and no consequences. I think one point being made is that sometimes the definition of colonial is so wide that it covers everything including the kitchen sink, which makes assertions meaningless. Another is that not everything is about the Atlantic slave trade, which was a small percentage of the GDP of the then UK, for example. Another point (not made but salient) is that only Europeans seem to have been appalled by slavery in all its forms, leading e.g. the British Empire to stamp on slavery wherever it found it, as in Dahomey (war with the kings of Dahomey, which is now Benin, to stop the slaving which was that nation's main economic activity) and in Zanzibar (gave up Heligoland in exchange for Zanzibar to shut the slave markets). A further point is that blame is apportioned to e.g. Britain (but also Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and Belgium) re the Atlantic slave trade, but not to nations such as Dahomey or Burunda (now part of Uganda), and Niger, who based their whole economy on selling slaves (as did many other African nations). This looks like special pleading against European empires with a large get out for African empires. Not every building or every work of art in Europe was paid for by slaving (hard for that to happen given how small a per cent of GDP slaving was). Only Europeans show any shame about slaving, they are also the only people blamed. You can see why a lot of people would be narked.

Any citizen/subject of a modern country that used to have an Empire and engaged in slavery is obviously not responsible for their country's past, but the whole point of Empires/colonies/slavery etc was to increase the wealth of the central power.
That wealth didn't just disappear when the sun set on the Empire; it originally sloshed around in an unequal way, building trophy houses, but also investments in industry, commerce, hospitals, schools, which formed the basis for the modern economy. So an imperialist past is never really past - the traces, good and bad, are still around, at home and abroad.
I haven't come across a serious historical analysis which actually blames the mistreated workers unloading sugar or working in the cotton mills for the fact that the raw material was produced by slaves. Or copper miners for their output being used to copper-fasten ships hulls, including those used in the slave trade.

Different historians specialise in different aspects of history, some will focus on the history of the British working class, others on the slave trade, others on British rule in Ireland or in India etc. I don't think specialisation means that you are denying other aspects of history.

Empire, colonialism and slavery cast long long shadows which are still around us, whether we are in one of the ex-colonies or the imperial centre. It doesn't help if people discuss those shadows in an accusatory way; but it also doesn't help to claim they aren't there.

But no modern person has any connection with the Atlantic slave trade (one of many such trades across the world) so no-one can be 'triggered' by showing some other facet of a person who may (like Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park who is held up as an example of virtue but is also a slave owner because he has Jamaican property) be vaguely connected with slavery. They sold rum, they traded in sugar or tobacco. One of my problems with electric cars is that they use batteries manufactured in China, which has no interest in human rights whatsoever, and the lithium and cobalt is mined by children and adults whose working conditions are little short of slavery. I don't get hysterical about electric cars but I am prepared to say why they are not a guiltless solution to changes in climate, however that is caused. The same goes for my appreciation of Hume, Colston etc, one a philosopher who improved the human condition but who somehow or other had income which traces back to slaves, the other on the board of the Africa Company, which does not mean he traded in slaves, his main dealings were in textiles and fruit as far as I can see, who also cared for the people of Bristol and put his money where his mouth was.

Hear! Hear! Exactly what she is doing. British history is evil and all about slavery and colonialism and even if you as a copper miner or a servant, or a labourer did not personally gain from it you are still complicit in slavery and everything you did is all about slavery and colonialism. Yuck, I'm afraid. The history of the English (and Scottish) working classes deserve better research than hers, which is entirely biased.

No, and NT displays are usually interesting. I have recently visited Agatha Christie's house, Greenway, in Devon, and it is very well done. I don't like being preached at either and I get the feeling from Fowler's study that I am being 'educated' and I do not appreciate that. I am also irritated by a narrative that is so one-sided and which casts its net so wide that anything is about slavery and colonialism, which, in the end, makes the points being put forward meaningless. Also, a lot of ignorance of the past comes through e.g. about ship-building, the origins of the agrarian and industrial revolutions, the Scottish Enlightenment etc.

My view is that we can't change the past , we move forward from where we are and we create narratives that allow us to do that.

Octavia Hill's vision for the National Trust was born of philanthropy (She helped the National Trust to buy and protect its first land and houses and campaigned for the preservation of footpaths to ensure everyone had right of access to the land.)

She was an interesting lady https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/people/octavia-hill-her-life-and-legacy. As with everything the nature of the trust has changed with the people who manage it, I love to be informed, I don't enjoy being preached at and guilt tripped.

I noted that there was an influx of new students joining Fowlers Futurelearn course this week, so I'll try and set aside some time to study with them.When I joined a few weeks ago, there wasn't anyone currently studying. Maybe Prof Fowler will drop in? She did on the first round.

It does seem to me that Corinne Fowler and the NT have cast their net so wide that anything can be colonial and anything can be connected to, or about the Atlantic Slave Trade and slavery in the West Indies, Americas etc (no mention of slavery in connection with e.g. Anglo-Saxon or Viking sites - where slaves certainly existed). The Atlantic Slave trade and its products (sugar and rum, mainly) were a small percentage of the trade carried out by Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example in 1792, 204 vessesl out of over 14,000 ships registered in Britain were slavers. In relation to Lundy Island, a mention of the Barbary Pirates' occupation of it in the seventeenth century when they were slaving all round Europe, is merited. As to people's opinions on eg. dominion status for India (which was intended to happen by 1918 but WWI got in the way), that Churchill disagreed with the measure has nothing whatsoever to do with his house, any more than his oppionion on Richard III (with which I happen to disagree) has.

Yes, that’s interesting.
I wonder in 100 years how and for what people will be judged.

NT information displays have always had a lot in them about good deeds, but that's probably because the good deeds were local whilst the atrocities were off-stage (eg in the West Indies). Also the good deeds resulted in stuff you could go and look at (workers' housing/art galleries/lending libraries/whatever) so entertainment in themselves. It wasn't a conspiracy to persuade us the aristocracy are all good eggs.

do they ever point out any good these families may have done such as philanthropy or improving the lot of their workforces?

There are lots of testimonies from survivors who have to leave the room or exert supreme self-control whenever the person who abused them is lauded for some good deed or other. Street angel, house devil describes this on a small scale.

There are philanthropists who may well have been adjacent to what are now understood as major human rights abuses.

I can think of Quaker philanthropists who improved the lot of their workforces.

I certainly don't know enough to act as a moral arbiter about the ends justified the means.