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.

Good post silk , i agree they probably never will be compensated, in an ideal world they would. The extremely wealthy families who benefited from owning hundreds of slaves can sleep easy. Their money is safe.

I agree silk.

Saying you can't judge slavery of the past by the standards of today is incredibly crass.

I'm finding this whole thread really odd. I don't understand why the OP is getting such a hard time for caring about and discussing this.

What about the way the Jewish people of Europe were treated in the 20th century?

What about the people the world over still used in sexual slavery, the children now sold into grooming gangs and the women in the middle East still kidnapped. I noticed though you only criminalised the people buying the slaves, what about the people from their own tribes etc who sold them?
While I agree it was horrific it is finished with.It shoyld be used as a lesson of what can't happen again and ffs we can't keep apologizing and paying them financially when we that are around now haven't done anything wrong

I don't think it's a mistake to judge historical matters from today's point of view. Evil is evil, slavery was a massive evil. That's like saying we shouldn't judge what the nazis did to the jews. Even at the time many non jewish people knew that what the nazis were doing was evil, even those that weren't jewish.
The ones who didn't were eitfher indifferent or just didn't care, or the ones who benefited by gaining their houses and possessions etc. We don't dismiss the evils of nazism because it was an "historical matter" and people "were different then", neither should we dismiss slavery.

woodhill i wrote this post about the jews before you mentioned them, my post wouldn't send for some reason.

I do believe that the descendants of slaves should have some form of compensation, but it will never happen sadly.

How would this work?

My DH's parents are from the Caribbean. His father is white, his mother is black. In all likelihood, his father's ancestors were slave-owners and his mother's ancestors were slaves. So should my DH be paying or gaining compensation?

What about my DD. On one side she has DH's family as above. On the other side, I'm white British. I guess that tips her towards paying reparations?

And the Arabs who used to enslave the African people and the Portuguese,Spanish and French slave owners?

I'm finding this whole thread really odd. I don't understand why the OP is getting such a hard time for caring about and discussing this.

Odd yes but doesn't surprise me. If i'd come on here and said "i've just read that when slavery was abolished in Britain the slaves were heavily compensated, to the amount of 40% of the entire government expenditure, but the owners of the slaves didn't get a penny, and i was angered by the injustice of that", then i can guarantee that i would be totally shot down in flames and every post would be full of righteous indignation on behalf of the slaves.

Its just always the way it is on mumsnet.

I do believe that the descendants of slaves should have some form of compensation, but it will never happen sadly.
How would this work

Somebody else said that and i agreed (in principle in an ideal world) . It's really not the point of my thread. I don't really expect anyone to get any compensation now, my thread is about the injustices of the time.
woodhill my thread is about British slave owners, not all those that you mentioned. We can't discuss all the evils of the world on one thread surely.

True Pony but it isn't that clear cut and Im trying to convey

@Blahblahboo I don't think there is any question that people do not knowingly want to support modern slavery, but this conversation has been about the 'main' instance of slavery within recent memory which was exporting black people from Africa to use as workers in the USA and U.K. and Europe.

As far as I am aware the black Africans who captured and sold slaves to white people coming into Africa were not doing so from amongst their own people, instead capturing members of rival tribes and groups with whom they were warring anyway and the winners would take their own slaves from the defeated. They traded these people for firearms and other technology that Europeans brought with them, which gave these tribes a huge advantage over their adversaries. The slavery that they themselves implemented was not even a fraction of the scale and market for slaves which Europeans created.

In terms of reparations, it is unfortunately probably unworkable, as it would be almost impossible to determine who was who and there isn't the money available to do it but slavery has and does still affect black people living today, it has put them at a huge disadvantage compared to their white peers, you cannot deny that and not enough has been done to level the playing field.

or how about how the palestines are being treated now?

You cannot judge the past with todays morals.

Would you be happy if down the line you had expesive property that you had invested your live savings in which was totally legal and actully encourged by the government to simpyl say down the line wait its totally wrong and we are now making it illegal so are confiscating your property and giving you nothing in return so you have nothing to show for your money or investment simply because the government said so?

(why these are human lives his is horrid but at the time they were considered properoty and while its crass the associated human lives with propetry it wasnt like that back then).

Also rember these people were not only rich and powerful but quite normal people too (though the rich and powerful could fuck the counrty up with upraisings etc remeber the British empire was still dealing with the lose of America at this poin tand did not want to risk pissing powerful people in the empire off that had the reasources to raise an army in rebellion)

@WyfOfBathe it wouldn't be individuals paying compensation, that has never happened not even with German families that stole valuable artworks from Jewish families for example, some have not even been forced to return things still in their possession.

But more funding put towards allowing black people to have the same access to education and employment opportunities and education outreach to help tackle racism within schools and workplaces would be workable.

I understand it will never happen, but at the very least people need to be aware of the modern day repercussions of our past actions.

worridmum so who would you rather have been compensated, the people who owned human beings and had them work long hours for free, or the people who had lost their liberty and were "owned" by someone else, parted from their loved ones and forced to work long hours to make other people rich but not receive a penny for themselves? Genuine question.

You make a good point tinypony - I think people are arguing because you put it too simply. I totally agree slavery was wrong, but I think the compensation issue is complex. Of course from a modern perspective it should not have happened.
Even today the tax paid by the City of London provides the largest proportion of income for the UK. But people demand it be closed down/ bankers paid less whatever. The result would be the collapse of the NHS for one (I would think) so although Bankers aren't my favourite people I would not demand their execution for the reasons given.

I think that i've been a bit misunderstood missbabbs tbf, i wasn't actually calling for compensation for the families of slaves in my post. I thought my op was clear on that. More for a bit of moral outrage on the fact that they weren't compensated i suppose. Quite surprised at some of the responses.

I think you were very clear in your OP tiny, and I agree with your reasoning.

To be fair William Wilberforce did have a strong influence on the abolition for moral reasons.

Yes, Wilberforce and other abolitionists may well have been motivated by a sense of morality, but the fact that the British government finally acceded to their demands cannot be divorced from the wider economic context, which undoubtedly played a role in hastening abolition. And of course, the emphasis on Wilberforce and white abolitionists is only part of the story and ignores the huge contribution of the enslaved themselves, who engaged in countless rebellions, large and small.

I agree with your sentiment op. But at that time is was hugely radical and given who had powers to vote bank then, had a proposal for compensation for the slaves been put forward as part of the bill, it would have been highly likely that the whole thing wouldn't have been passed at all.

Wilberforce House is a museum in Hull which talks about the history of slavery and the fight for the abolition of it- it's really worth a visit.

Sorry, second part of my post was a response to Woodhill.

YABU. The government compensated the slaveholders because they were taking their property away! Suppose the government decided to legislate that to solve the housing crisis buildings under three-storeys should be demolished and replaced with flats - wouldn't you quite like them to compensate you for the loss of your property?

People seem to forget that slaves were property, nothing more. They were not citizens and did not have rights as such. Yes, today most of us think that slaves actually were people, but you can't judge the past by today's standards. (No doubt in 200 years people on Future Mumsnet will be furious about something that seems normal and necessary to us today.)

Anyway, it was years ago. There's nobody alive today who has (legally) held slaves, and nobody alive today who has (legally) been a slave. It's really not worth getting youself worked up over the problems and inequalities of history, when there are current problems we face. Modern slavery being just one.

chelle i'm sorry but everything about your post is wrong on so many levels, that I really can't be bothered to respond to it.

I have moral outrage against housewifery and women who don't work actually and provide sex and house work to men in return for money and food..... we all have our own hobby horses.

I agree oldie i too have moral outrage of loads of other things.What's wrong with that? Can't talk about them all at once though eh? Nothing wrong with venting about something that bothers you on here is there? Probably wouldn't be a mumsnet if we didn't.

Of course. Free speech uber alles in my book. All my ancestors in the 1700s and 1800s did not have a bean so I have no responsibility even by genes...... although I suppose when the UK started killing itself with sugar in the 1700s onwards if they could afford it their purchase of it might have helped the slave trade.

The difficult issue is that many people in the Caribbean (I love it out there and often go) today have much better lives than had they not been moved there from Africa so ultimately you could make a case for they owe money for the benefits they derived if you wanted to be perverse I suppose.

This is an interesting thread: it's brought up many issues. I understand the OP's position, but it shows how very far we have moved in our thinking of society .

On the realpolitik one, there are quite a few people who think the relatively recent Irish peace agreement is fatally flawed by not bringing some people to justice but there are those who who point out that without accepting that, no agreement would gave been reached and yet another generation would have suffered. Governments usually need to compromise in a democracy (and there have been er few reports of virtuous egalitarian pleasant dictatorships that achieve good outcomes).

To expand the Oldie's most recent point, I was at a family dinner a few years ago. Some of the family is from the subcontinent where some still are, some left in the 19c and did exceptionally well, now rich and powerful in their area. One bit of the European side apologised to one bit of the subcontinent side for the behaviour of the European ancestors to get the response " thank heavens you did. Otherwise we'd still be incredibly poor in X."

I know that's exceptional but it was an interesting an unexpected viewpoint.

I feel guilty because of the behaviour of my ancestors: even though I have not benefited materially, I have benefited from increased aspiration. I find the guilt illogical but try my hardest to assuage it by making sure I work in my private life to benefit those at the harder end, wherever they come from.

What I do find repugnant is that France kept Haiti's to its repayment of the freedom debt interest, paid off finally in 1947 ( I think).

What I find heartening is that whilst Christianity accepted the institution of slavery, it is quite clear that early writers believed that slaves -and women- had souls, " in Christ there is neither slave nor free, neither male nor female". Which is why, imv, poor treatment was/is even worse: there was no scriptural justification for it at all, even if slavery itself was "justified" as indeed it was by some of the Confederate side ( not Lee, who was an abolitionist).

And which is why the Wedgwood medallion, Am I not a man and a brother, was so important in bringing home that truth, so conveniently ignored.