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

That is complete bullshit.

Slavery has been a feature of human societies pretty much everywhere since the stone ages.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade just happens to be one of the more recent episodes, the descendants of which form a relatively large, homogenous and English-speaking group. Before that there was slavery by the Moors taking around 1.5 million Europeans to North Africa (you can see red-haired people in Tunisia still now). The Arabs were big slave traders, then there was slavery within Europe, Africa and don't forget the Khanates of the Mongolian Empire where you were lucky to escape with your life (The Mongols are thought to have wiped out 5% of the world population at the time, in addition to taking hordes of slaves - you have a good idea what the women would have been used for). Don't get me started on the Romans, Greeks, Persians or Vikings...

"The English started the slave trade" is possibly one of the most inaccurate statements I have ever read.

Yes they did -they weren't first but the British Empire was built on slaves. But they also paid a huge amount to end it. i believe it took about 200 years and only was recently paid off -as in 2017 or something.So every citizen has paid a 'debt'. Unfortunately that debt was mainly to the families that 'owned' a slave and not to the original people. But given the situation how can we possible compensate those families originally.

MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing - you should listen to this 2 part series of Inside Science, on Radio 4, there is an interesting comment about Neanderthal DNA ... amoung other findings in regard to DNA and race in the 2nd part.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cl70

@Shinjirarenai for god sake will you read the bloody thread.

I have said at least five times now that I am teferring to the Transatlantic slave trade, which is commonly called "the Slave trade".

Here, from a history article online:
The slave trade refers to the transatlantic trading patterns which were established as early as the mid-17th century

@MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing
thanks

So what is the answer that would allow us to draw a line and move humanity forward together?

India, S Africa and Australia were part of the British Empire to name a few, Canada too.

So what is the answer that would allow us to draw a line and move humanity forward together?
Vote out the likes of Trump - but not in our remit sadly.

have said at least five times now that I am teferring to the Transatlantic slave trade, which is commonly called "the Slave trade"

Maybe in North America but certainly not else where.

Even if you agree with the premise that the British (not the English) started the slave trade, what do you want done about it?

Nobody in the UK was alive then. And those of us who have ancestors from that time in the UK were probably down the mines or in cotton mills or working in the fields. Not exactly well paid merchants who were benefiting. They may not have been slaves but they weren't many rungs further up.

People can virtue signal on this thread about something for which they can bear no responsibility because it happened over 200 years ago, or you can do something constructive and think about where your clothes and other belongings come from. As a pp said, we can stop buying plastic tat and fast fashion. as the people who make them are in a form of slavery now.

acknowledging and apologising for actions in the past is very important

I agree - and more to the point, so do plenty of others:

www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/18/africans-apologise-slave-trade

@Annamaria14 - I was referring to the original post - I have no idea what you said.

Fuck reading the thread - the hand-wringing, white-guilt bullshit on here is unbearable since last weekend - not to mention the utterly Eurocentric, myopic and poorly informed view of history that so many have.

In the US at least nothing will change until there's a complete sea change in how policing is done, because the police here are a genuine menace. Their violence is massively, disproportionately aimed at black people, but they're ultimately a danger to everyone because they behave like an army occupying what it considers to be hostile territory. Have a quick look through footage taken at the current protests if you don't believe me.

twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1268395872057950208

In Sacramento, California they shot a little boy who couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 right in the face. He might lose an eye. All for existing while black and being at a protest with his parents.

I have said at least five times now that I am referring to the Transatlantic slave trade, which is commonly called "the Slave trade".
Why do you keep referring to it? Why won't you acknowledge that other nations and other times had slaves, too? Or do you only engage with the bits of history that suit you.

All this is misguided: the "black American woman" would be better directing her ire at modern America than the England of centuries ago.

@waltzingparrot

I think someone up thread mentioned contrition being a key part with Germany and their acknowledgement of WW2.

It seems to me that you cannot clear the air without first acknowledging, then apologising and showing real contrition as to not do this just puts more onto the victims.

It is also this acknowledgement that is the problem as, we can see here, some people compare England to other countries, som think it is best left in the past, and some say it wasn't my working class ancestors.

If we shift the issue to 'behaviour towards our fellow human and say that England, just England has decided that we recognise thenegative parts of the past and want to remove any part of it that lingers on affecting people today, then maybe we start a shift for other countries to also do it - but we have to take ourselves out of the global perspective of 'all other countries' did it therefore... and just state that we, as a country, recognise the damage done.

But it does need a complete acknowledgement I think for people to move on.

Relavant in some ways here, but I was in Ireland when the Queen visited. That really marked a change in the way the Irish viewed her afterwards.

She addressed the audience in Irish (you could see the surprise on the Ambassador's face) and she bowed and laid a wreath at an important memorial site for Irish soldiers.

Two things which I think made a real difference. I think Philip also visited Glasnevin? Cemetery where the Easter Rising men are buried.

I could feel the difference, after that trip.

Apologies for shocking typos and sp.

Why do you keep referring to it? Why won't you acknowledge that other nations and other times had slaves, too?

‘All lives matter’ comes to mind.

I wouldn't want to be in the police in a country with US gun laws. How would you get good people to take that risk. Any nut job could blow your brains out any time.
I can't see things improving without better gun laws.
But on the other hand how the justice system is seen as fair with the number of black people who are imprisoned in comparison to the number of white is ridiculous.

Just to note my references to all the Atlantic slavers ending up speaking English - I was referring to those that ended up in what we call the US today.

Speaking of which, nothing further to add, but one of the most odd and unpleasant episodes of "The History Detectives" (Whose Tukufu Zuberi specialises in the great African diaspora) was a bill of sale for a slave from pre-emancipation days that was found in some old paperwork.

It's one thing to witter on a message board in abstract terms, but quite another to actually see a piece of paper detailing the transaction of a human life as property. I'd urge folk to try and track it down

www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/bill-of-sale/

While cleaning out her parents’ attic, Jeanie Hans found a box of her grandfather’s possessions. Among some books and old gun manuals she found a disturbing document: an 1829 ‘Bill of Sale’ for the purchase of a 17-year old “negro girl” named Willoby.

The document has haunted Jeanie ever since she found it. She would like to know more about the young girl and asks History Detectives host Eduardo Pagán to find out what happened to Willoby.

Guns and slaves, eh ? Not really much more to say.

I've been here a long time and will never get my head around the American love for and emotional attachment to guns. People seem to believe that more guns = more safety, whereas to me as a Brit more guns = more people dying in situations where they might not have if there hadn't been guns involved.

It's history.
You cannot rewrite history regardless of who was responsible.

and say that England, just England has decided that we recognise thenegative parts of the

That would be ludicrous. Are you unaware of the significant role of Scotland in the UK's imperial past?

Why do you keep referring to it? Why won't you acknowledge that other nations and other times had slaves, too?
‘All lives matter’ comes to mind.
It was more "you may have started this thread but you don't own it. You are not the thread police who can tell us what we can, or cannot, discuss."

@Destnation

But that is not the issue and to be honest, the whole who started it/was the worst is a red herring.

The key thing is that in the US, it has created generations of people who are still viewed as second class, due to old notions of superior that were used to justify the trading of people.

We have to create a dialogue that addresses that and all of the whataboutery involved in order for those people disproportionately affected to be able to move on. It is a human conscience issue.

What is it we are really afraid of? Revenge? Loss of assets? Shift in power dynamics?

We have to be really honest and really ready to accept that we are not in control of the outcome but we do have to do something.

I think it is a normal, and maybe a healthy reaction to feel ashamed of what your ancestors have done to other people.

No, it's a peculiarly Nationalistic viewpoint that is not great, basically by saying that you are more part of your "ancestors" than part of all the people who live today specifically promotes the idea that nations are different and othering is okay and fine.

You can and should learn about all history, you are no more responsible for strangers from a hundred years ago than you are responsible for strangers who live in another country today.