The English started the slave trade

[Annamaria14]

I just saw a black American woman post online,

"The English started the slave trade. They caused all our problems, they hurt generations of people. I will never set foot in that country".

What do you think? I felt a bit guilty, because the English did cause a lot of problems around the world. Have we learned from our past. How can we do better in the future

@fuckinghellthisshit

Really interested to hear read your comments on African involvement in the trade. Do you get the impression that this is largely unknown or denied in general?

The comparison between holding German people to account over The Holocaust and British people to account over slavery isn’t quite the same.

Germans have showed contrition.
They were held to account and made to change. They have apologised and worked to build a better society.

The British do no such thing. They looted humans and made vast sums of money from it, the sailed around the world as white saviours causing wars right, left and centre and buying human beings.
Yes many people lived in poverty on this island but poverty is not the same as slavery nor is it the same as having people come in and telling you you’re living in mud huts and doing life wrong.
People had jobs and homes because they were made available to them by people who did benefit from slavery, theft and war at the hands of their country men. Yes it might have been shit but don’t pretend they didn’t get anything from it. Don’t pretend the industrial revolution wasn’t also built from the money raised from the lives of black people and people stolen from across the globe in the name of British supremacy.

You are still benefiting from it now.

I think it's important to understand the past as the present is a direct result of past actions. But nobody should feel guilty for those past actions. We can't change it, it's happened, it's history, we can't undo it.

But what we can influence is the present, which will lead to changes in the future. That's what we should be concentrating on.

@Pumperthepumper

The state of Greece didn't exist at the time. 'The Greeks' did not exist as a people. The Athenians build the Parthenon. On the one hand you are arguing that the Ottomans had no right to sell because they had conquered Athens. But Athens has been subsumed into modern day Greece. You can't argue that one set of conquerors have no rights but another should assume ownership. I know this will be too confusing for you.

This is such an embarrassing argument, I can’t believe you’ve actually gone for it. Why are the existing marbles in Athens? Why don’t we just claim them too?

Why do you need to know what nationality I am or if I’m landed gentry? The marbles you saw and the marbles I saw (I’ve seen the Athens ones too, mind you) were already damaged when we (you and me) saw them. Me being foreign or otherwise doesn’t change that.

I've never heard property law described as embarrassing. There's a first time for everything I suppose. The existing marbles aren't in Athens. Some of them are. This is what you're arguing about. By 'we', I assume you mean that you're a descendant of Lord Elgin?

I asked you what damage was done by 'the British'. You haven't answered this.

What's she doing about the modern slave trade? (Fuck all)

Probably just as many traded these days as ever were when Britain was a colonial power.

There is no doubt that the arrival of Europeans on the American continent was an absolute catastrophe for the indigenous populations. From Columbus to the Trail of Tears. The annihilation of a people. I would recommend Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee for anyone interested.

People commenting that working class Britons did not benefit from the slave trade - there are ways we did 'benefit'. One is the influx of cheap sugar, which was used to supplement the low-calorie diet of industrial workers with instant energy. Another is that the railway boom of the 1840s/50s was funded by investment of the slave compensation paid in the 1830s.
Whether individuals benefited is arguable, bu the wealth of the nation grew on the riches pouring out of the West Indies. And notable that slavery was only abolished once the West Indian plantations became less fertile/profitable through overcropping

I asked you what damage was done by 'the British'. You haven't answered this.

The British have damaged them several times. When they were stolen. When they were moved around. When they were cleaned. When they were displayed.

As for "my ancestors were poor so didn't benefit from the slave trade/colonialism" there are more ways than one to benefit. If you use public buildings built from plantation money you are benefitting from the slave trade. If your working class ancestors, say in the early 1900s, had a slightly better diet or slightly better access to affordable clothing when similar populations in non-colonialist countries didn't, then that almost certainly means they benefitted from colonialism.

Indeed @corythatwas, most people would have involvement indirectly. In the area I grew up in of the Scottish Highlands, there were strong ties to the African slave trade and the plantations that only now starting to be more widely admitted to. Villages such as Cromarty, on the east coast, benefitted from the industry as locals were employed to produce the cloth which made the sacks for West Indian produce. Being poor didn't mean your ancestors weren't somewhere in the chain, however a small a cog.

The guardian wrote an interesting article on this issue: Scotland erased Guyana from its past [[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/16/scotland-guyana-past-abolitionists-slavery-caribbean]]

Places like Liverpool have tried to address it's links with the slave trade but there is a lack of widespread acknowledgement of the roots certain areas/buildings have with the slave trade. Apparently when the Museum of Scotland first opened it somehow forgot to include mention of the slave trade.

The Jewish holocaust is not 'glossed over' in the same way, it's acknowledged and the horrors are reguarly featured in documentaries and films. There isn't the same attempts to just move on from it. The legacy of the African slave trade is still alive today, it needs widespread acknowledgement and the decendents of the trade to be listened to. You need to lance the wound in order for it heal, yet we keep trying to stick a bandage on top and say stop making a fuss.

BlackBucketOfCheese - its worth remebering not everyone who is British is decended from people that even lived here during the industrual revolution, plenty of british people are directly decended from slaves. One thing that i try to get my head round as someone living in modern Britain is how much i currently benefit from things like the idustrial revolution as you mention.

If the Elgin marbles are ok to stay in the UK does that mean art works stolen from Jewish families by the Nazi should not be returned to the famalies who owned them also? I mean the UN did not exist back then and it was sanctioned by the German state at the time right, so no probs there at all then.

@Abraid2

Proportionately more Irish and Scottish people worked in or for the Empire. If you go to Indian cemeteries from the nineteenth century this is very obvious,

That is true, because the class system and economic conditions in the countryside denied them many other opportunities. My Great Great Grandfather was in the Indian Army, he came from a working class background in a wee farming village in Fife which is still a relatively humble backwater today, joining the Indian army enabled him to better himself and give his family a leg up into the professional classes. I suppose he could have gone down a coal mine instead but i cant really blame him for not choosing that option.

The "Civilisation" thing is something many would have argued at the time, but it has little or no currency today. The British brought civilisation to uninhabited rocks like Ascension Island. They even planted it with all sorts and made it rain on what became known as Green Mountain. That's about it.

Regards the idea that the British have never said sorry for slavery, well, barking. Seen Attenborough's Gandhi ? Or Roeg's Walkabout ? or read Conrad, Forster or Naipaul? Ever read any British historians or Empire like Jan Morris, James Walvin or David Olosuga?

No. Course not.

It's an imbalance, though, isn't it?

White people can say 'it was my ancestors, not me' and carry no generational burden of guilt, but black people still bear the oppression that started with slavery: the basis in white supremacy, the fracturing of the family unit, working to achieve stability and thrive in a hostile environment, etc.

There is actual trauma in knowing that your forbears endured the middle passage and generations of life on a plantation.

The wealth of this country that was built on the plantations, the ports of Bristol, Liverpool, god knows why this stuff is restricted to Black History Month - the history of this country's involvement in and profit from slavery is white history, and year round.

The British Empire, was one of massive contradictions, and having studied it in depth for the last few years, one cannot examine the good without the bad, and vice versa. First of all, slavery is not a modern phenomenon, and sub saharan Africans being enslaved sent to the Arab world was the major destination prior to the age of discovery (15th century). The various slavery states of the west African coast would engage in warfare, and whoever lost would be sold to the caravans that would eventually reach the slave markets of the near east. The act of castration for male slaves means that there is effectively no legacy we can see of the millions of Africans who were workes to death in the Arab world, but a quick glance at Google can give you more information.

Bring forth European interest in the Americas, and the enslaved native Americans were not enough to fuel the labour requirements of the sugar and tobacco plantations, as between them and the white indentured servants (who had a short life expectancy) simply were dying too quickly. As such the European traders found they could sell manufactured goods to the West African slave states in exchange for for captured adversaries. This formed the triangle trade that would exist in to the 19th century, and in an odd paradox was only stopped by the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron in the 19th century, which cost the lives of thousands of British sailors, and a large chunk of the Royal Navy's capacity, which could have been used elsewhere. It is important to remember however, that the triangle trade did ramp up the levels of violence in the region, as vast fortunes could be made by the chieftains in conquering and enslaving local tribes.
As a side note, well in room the 19th century villages in Cornwall and Ireland were being enslaved by North African Corsair raids and sold in to sex slavery, Sonya idea that historically, it was only Europeans enslaving sub saharan Africans doesn't stack up to scrutiny, rather a small section of societies enslaving whoever they could, as, you guessed it, it was EXTREMELY profitable to do so, especially prior to the industrial revolution. Nuance is key!

I have ancestors who had a slave-worked sugar plantation in Barbados and one who was a slave trader to what is now the US and elsewhere. It is not something I feel good about but I feel no personal guilt.

Further back, I allegedly had an ancestor who was a Viking slave trader in Dublin. I read somewhere that many Icelandic people are descendants of Irish female slaves. Of course England didn’t start the slave trade it’s been around as long as people.

We should be aware of the past and the role our country played in it, the repercussions of what we did are still felt today and communities disadvantaged and persecuted as a result.

*18th century for Cornwall raids

I’m mixed race so half of my ancestors aren’t even British, but I am and the more I learn about history the more ashamed I am of our past. I know relatively very little about the slave trade and the empire, but I am at least aware that we have a past to be ashamed of. I honestly think that many Brits have no idea - I would have no idea if I hadn’t bothered to watch a few documentaries and I had a pretty good education!

The British, as a nation including royalty and the government, will never fully acknowledge what they have done in the past because to do so would mean admitting to the atrocities that we are still complicit in and how recent some of these atrocities are. We get away with the fact that we took Palestine then carved it up and gave it away to people who steal and oppress the ones that were there to this day, while we not only stand and watch, but encourage it. What we did to the lives of people in India isn’t slightly softened after generations yet, it still directly affects people alive today.

If we open the can of worms that only begins with the slave trade, it would pretty much ruin the country. While politicians and citizens of today can pay lip service to apologies for some of our previous atrocities, sadly I can’t see it ever being done properly.

I went to a UK comprehensive in the 80s and we most definatly learned about the slave trade and we not taught that Britian brought civilisation to the world. It seems unlikely that this has been introduced to the curuculm since then?

The Ottoman Empire was the first and largest slave trader. They have neither apologised nor acknowledged their part in such a disgusting policy.
Yes the English were part of the slave trade, however it couldn’t have happened without the agreement of the African tribal chiefs, who after their experience with the Ottoman Empire recognised the money to be made and chose to actively sell their poorer members to the traders.
We should never try to diminish the part England played. How long though can we continue to carry a guilt that we as people now are not responsible for. How and when can we ever apologise enough.at what point is the debt payed.
We need to concentrate on improving the present, ensuring equality not become mired in guilt and reproach. Never ending guilt does not breed community it breeds resentment for both parties eventually.

You can argue that the British working class were indirect beneficiaries of the products and profits of slavery, but you must offset that against their losses in terms of depressed wages (can't compete with labour that costs nothing) and diverted investment. If all that money had gone into growing beet in East Anglia rather than cane in Jamaica, the British working poor would have been better off in every way.

We should also remember the UK with the US behind them stood against racism against jews and gypsies and many others and the atrocities in Germany in WWII - we have much to be proud of as two of the best nations on earth for human rights.

Hahahhahahahahaha can you HEAR yourself?

@Xenia you have been all over Mumsnet the last few weeks first deriding any shielding person who worries about their life (the lives of 1.5 million people) and now spending day after day defending British white people who need to address their white privilege and inclination toward racism and now here you are holding up Britain and the USA as bastions of human rights during a time when black people from those places are standing here telling you our lives are at risk because of the colour of our skin. We are being killed and persecuted because of the colour of our skin.

You can write down as many laws as you like. You can push them through into human rights laws, it doesn’t mean corrupt police forces, legal representation, large corporations, or pseudo intellectual middle class white women on Mumsnet are going to actually believe them and ask their government to enforce them.

If you are going to hark back to the greatness of British in WW2 - and you clearly have the capacity to show pride in those actions. Why can’t you show remorse for the actions of British people that still impact the lives of black people today?

Why are British people so unwilling to listen to us black people when we tell you how damaging your history and your insistence that there is no need to acknowledge or apologise or give reparations for it, is to us?

There are dozens of racist posts on this thread. I’d quite like a break down of @MNHQ representation, because black women here feel the racism on this forum is out of control.
And not only that, the number of users here who read the racism and do not tackle it. Reporting is all well and good but we need to see a change in these views being challenged. If you don’t challenge them with us then you are telling racists that you accept them and their views within your environments.

In terms of diet, in the years leading up to Peterloo, the food available to the poor in Britain was by no means rich. The factory workers of Manchester and the hill farmers of the Penines were not sitting down to tea with sugar and cucumber sandwiches.

(Mike Leigh's Peterloo is well worth a watch if you haven't seen it.)

One thing that i try to get my head round as someone living in modern Britain is how much i currently benefit from things like the idustrial revolution as you mention.

Which I recognise, accept and deal with daily. I choose to live here as a black woman from another country but I still challenge the privilege living here affords me.

I don’t see many white people doing that.

her loss