That slave owners were compensated so highly in Britain

[tinypony]

I never realised till i read this article the extent of slavery in the UK till i read this. The fact that when slavery was abolished the slave owners were compensated by (in today's money) by millions of pounds, 40% of the ENTIRE government expenditure for 1834. If it wasn't for the fact they were getting compensated so highly we'd never have known the names of all these slave owners. But the lure of the big money drew them out of the woodwork.

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/british-history-slavery-buried-scale-revealed

How bloody hypocritical and contradictory to abolish slavery on the one hand (presumably because of the immorality of it) but on the other hand give massive compensation to those affected.
It's just another case of the elite being looked after, where was the compensation for the slaves and their families. I'm disgusted.

I do sometimes wonder how that would practically work - redistributing that wealth. How do you work out which part of a family's inheritance comes from slavery, which from other interests? Do you track where the money went? Or just confiscate the original amount (or adjust it for inflation) from however many descendents there are? Or do you means test the descendents? What if they have ancestors who were victims as well as perpetrators? I know one person who's father is descended from southern slave owners who owned her mum's family.

Of course it would never happen. I just find the weird mental gymnastics fascinating and it makes you realise how murky all our family trees are.

Pratchett

So, the proceeds of crime should be sacrificed, despite it not being illegal at the time?

So, the proceeds of crime should be sacrificed, despite it not being illegal at the time?

I don't think it is that simple. Obviously. But I do think that as we benefited from colonialism, and still benefit from it, we should acknowledge that and work towards a fairer world.

When people say, "charity begins at home" for example, as well as misunderstanding the saying, they forget that the reason parts of Africa are in the state they are is because of us. Rwanda; the genocide was partly caused by divide and conquer. Congo; the worst history of violent oppression in the world, I would argue is now very poor and very unstable. South Africa; need I say more?

I think people love to say, "here's the line, I win, now it's mine". When people are still only starting the race because you and yours cheated.

Better to channel your indignation for the people that are still slaves today despite it being illegal.

I think well done to that government that thought freedom of the slaves was not worth a price tag. It's still politics and if that's what it took, then so be it.

As they say, money talks.

Barbarian has a good grasp of realpolitik.

what about buying clothes from high street retailers who use badly paid women and children in unsafe conditions so that we can have cheap clothes? we would not allow children or adults in the UK to work under such terrible conditions these days but we turn a blind eye because it happens abroad. One day all that will be stopped and people will criticise us for supporting this unfair industry.

We can't change what we did to West Africa (and other places) once, but we can change how we treat them now. Awful as the slave trade was, and much as it deserves to be remembered, to me it makes more sense to get angry about how we as a nation act these days. We could look at how we support corrupt regimes in return for trade, who we sell arms to, whio we harm with debt repayment etc. But we don't because it would hurt us now. We really are no better than our ancestors.

Pratchett

We do pay for it. No one who's opinion I value would deny we benefit(ed) from it but empty apologies from politicians mean nothing.

We gave £13.3bn in 2016 (from 5 seconds on the BBC website). It could be more. It could be £13.3bn less.

We really are no better than our ancestors. I agree. Chocolate is produced by slaves still. Clothes are produced in terrible conditions. We keep majority world countries down with war and debt and tell them they are the problem.

What really interests me is that countries with very little except OK arable land and fairly low population densities is that they do far better than those countries with oil, diamonds, gems etc. Having shit that the West wants is really dangerous if you live in Africa.

Better to channel your indignation for the people that are still slaves today despite it being illegal.
Just because i felt outraged at what happened years ago doesn't mean i'm not outraged at what goes on today.

It's not about 'giving' viva. There's fairly good evidence that the way we give aid hurts rather than helping. It is a complex system and we already fucked it up royally. Going in now and telling people what they need isn't going to help.

But when we let young people who are leaving these countries drown in the Med and then wonder why they were coming and blame them for it...

It's interesting how we manage to make the terrible things we do legal and make the stuff desperate people do to survive and prosper illegal. It's almost like we are self-serving arseholes.

"Not only did the slaves receive nothing, under another clause of the act they were compelled to provide 45 hours of unpaid labour each week for their former masters, for a further four years after their supposed liberation."

This is almost worse than compensation

We really are no better than our ancestors.

I think it's ask important to be circumspect about use of "we" and "our ancestors". Both in terms of collective guilt and in considering what emancipation meant.

My great great grandparents were all in nasty, seven day week, manual occupations, lived in slum areas and signed their names with an "x". They had no education, status, capital or influence regardless of their nationality or race (and they are a mixed bunch). Earlier generations presumably similar or worse.

So slavery wasn't the extent of exploitation and misery and freed slaves were often joining a slightly different massed rank of the exploited and miserable. Emancipation didn't mean their problems were over.

I think well done to that government that thought freedom of the slaves was not worth a price tag. It's still politics and if that's what it took, then so be it.

It shouldn't have needed a price tag, laws can be passed I think well done to that government that thought freedom of the slaves was not worth a price tag. It's still politics and if that's what it took, then so be it.
All for the benefit of the slave owners. The government of the time obviously thought the slave owners more worthy of compensation than the slaves. If they'd wanted they could have abolished slavery without the owners getting a penny. Why didn't the government give the slaves any compensation.

How bloody hypocritical and contradictory to abolish slavery on the one hand (presumably because of the immorality of it) but on the other hand give massive compensation to those affected

did you see panaorama? The EU is also compensating human traffickers in Libya and across africa.

It annoys me that people view things that happened hundreds of years ago through today's morality as if that morality was prevalent and understood then but they just chose to ignore it. And expecting those involved to have a big dollop of hindsight about things which were then current.

As a poster above said, lots of ordinary people invested in it too. Many of the people involved would never have had a slave (or even a black person) and had very little idea what was going on in the New World.

I wonder how most posters would feel if tomorrow the government started promoting a new scheme telling everybody they should invest because it was going to make us all rich. Said it was all completely legal and above board. So people ploughed in their life savings.

Then a few years later the government says 'Ah, now we made a bit of a miscalculation. Actually this is the worst thing ever and we're taking away all the investment we told you to make and giving them to someone else?

There would be uproar. And it probably wouldn't have been banned, so given Britain was instrumental in ending Slavery that would have meant it went on much longer and more suffering happened.

Yes sun i also watched a programme the other night about young Vietnamese women forced to work as slaves in a garment factory, they never got paid and used to get beaten. I was equally angered. The owner eventually got tried and convicted. There's atrocities and injustices going on today, but this thread is about the relatively unknown slave trade of the 19th century.

The recent BBC 3-part series, about trying to make sweets in 3 different eras covered this in some (horrific detail).

To be honest, I'm surprised that anyone is surprised since Tory politics is still based in this era.

If anyone can get the US PBS, there's an edition of "The History Detectives" where they trace the story behind a manumission document. Very uncomfortable viewing to see ledgers of human beings with their prices.

MargaretTwatyer surely part of the point of examining history is that not every person went along with Nazism, or the salve trade, or Apartheid or any number of things. History can teach us to critically examine why people did what they did and who resisted. And to help us resist now.

Otherwise we all just say, "whatever, it's all relative, I'll buy sweat shop clothes and vote Tory".

Many of the people involved would never have had a slave (or even a black person) and had very little idea what was going on in the New World.

But those ordinary people who weren't involved had to pay their taxes of which 40% were used to compensate the rich slave owners. (nothing in it for them) Bit like the way taxpayers today bail the banks out i suppose.

"Ordinary people" of that era didn't pay income tax at all, if by "ordinary people" you mean the lumpen majority.

Its all history now anyway. Hard to get worked up about something that doesn't exist anymore.

In fact Income Tax was only 35 years old at the time of the Slavery Abolition Act and was introduced for incomes above £60
a year. A very comfortable income.

It annoys me that people view things that happened hundreds of years ago through today's morality as if that morality was prevalent and understood then but they just chose to ignore it

The morality was there alright. People who chose to ignore what was going on were probably the ones who were benefiting, but it was the morality of right minded people who managed to force change and bring about its abolition.