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

I do agree with people who say we were not taught about the troubles at school, also other British disgraces such as - chemical weapons attacks on the Bolsheviks and Iraqis, the bombardment of Dublin by Royal Navy ships, the battle of the Boyne, the Easter Uprising, Churchill was involved in all of these. The invasion of Iran in WW2. Operation Ajax - the 1953 coup in Iran which removed PM Mossadegh, replacing him with the Shah. The Suez fiasco.
I do not celebrate any of those things, but equally I didn't take part in them, so do not feel responsible or apologetic for them.

andy I didn't say people were unaware of the Troubles, of course people knew about terrorist incidents. But that seemed to be the extent of what people knew. Nothing about the history of the conflict or what people's grievances were, what British forces actually did in Northern Ireland, no real knowledge at all. Just that the IRA were terrorists and the Brits won the war, end of story.

Operation Ajax - the 1953 coup in Iran which removed PM Mossadegh, replacing him with the Shah.

You'd think they'd teach that just for the chance to mention Kermit Roosevelt and laugh at a foreigners name. Which used to be at least one lesson a week in school.

I did A-level history so probably did more than most. The main topics were 1890-1930 and then the Second World War until the Cold War. I think those periods of time were incredibly important and I learnt a lot, however, I never really did anything about our colonial past and I think that was a major omission. In younger years, I’ll have covered the Tudors, Egyptians etc. The ‘fun’ topics I guess. I do remember doing a topic on Ireland at gcse and that was the closest we got to questioning our past.

Yeah, of course people knew that there was a conflict, but I don't think most British people had any real perspective on what people in Ireland wanted or what living under the occupation was like. The coverage of any statement from Sinn Fein was always very odd.

There is a lot of history to cover, and I suppose it is easier to stay away from the more controversial topics, Slavery was something I def learnt. I didn,t do history beyond year 9 though (13-14yr).

Notably lacking from my education was anything about the colonization of India. Do they do that at A level? Having said that, I was abroad until age 11 so missed most of what was taught in primary school.

Well technically African's started it. But Europeans certainly got on board & then some!

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-great-grandfather-the-nigerian-slave-trader/amp

I did A-level history so probably did more than most. The main topics were 1890-1930 and then the Second World War until the Cold War.

That's because we'd fixed slavery ...

Notably lacking from my education was anything about the colonization of India. Do they do that at A level? Having said that, I was abroad until age 11 so missed most of what was taught in primary school.

My DGF was born in Darjeeling, so I knew a lot about the Raj from my DM. (thinks) In fact I only know about it from my DM.

DGF was thrilled when immigration opened up after the war. Because his nanny was Hindi, he had learned that as well as English. He enjoyed having a natter and in later life reached for Hindi words over English. (Something my DF now does with English over Italian. It's quite upsetting).

My ancestors were raped and pillaged by the vikings. Fucking Danes - I refuse to visit Copenhagen, or eat their bacon - and don't get me started on the French and William the conqueror. Then of course there's the Romans - arseholes - burnt down loads of our villages and enslaved our women and children - I won't touch pasta .....

I'm from Lancashire - my relatives worked in the mills and down pits. What do you want me to apologise for exactly?

@7ofNine Wikipedia seems to describe it as an occupation rather than a colonisation.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria

1931-45 so very much WW2???

@Cremebrule: The main topics were 1890-1930 and then the Second World War until the Cold War. I think those periods of time were incredibly important and I learnt a lot, however, I never really did anything about our colonial past

The 1890's and up to WW1 are often seen as the hight of the British Empire, there is certainly a lot of literature & films around... I am not sure how your teacher missed mentioning it.
I also believe that the reson the 1930's - 1950's is covered extensively is because Britain and its allies came out smelling of roses. It's easy to drop the part of "...what went before" ... a lot of history recording and subsequent teaching is a done by the victorious party.
World history is mind blowing... there is so much of it, we can only ever look at snippets.

The trouble with history is that there's so much of it. It's not possible to include all topics that people think worthy in a school curriculum. And even it were possible, it would end up being British-centric in terms of international history, ie only covering British actions in other countries and not including their wider histories.

Out of interest, does anyone know if other former coloniser countries have the same level of soul-searching and guilt about their past? Eg Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands?

agree with others that The Troubles were all but skipped

I'm so old that I was at school before that happened (!!), but in some ways it's hard to blame them
Comparatively speaking it's pretty close both in time and geography, and as we see on here all the time there's almost nothing which can be said about the Troubles without a colossal pile-on

Ylvamoon I think it was always mentioned in passing as a catalyst for domestic changes rather than exploring our role in it if that makes sense?

World history is mind blowing... there is so much of it, we can only ever look at snippets.

I'm of the belief that you can only appreciate your own history by leaning another. Which is why I don't have any respect for the Brexiteers blather on "British History", (not that they even know the first thing about that anyway).

The trouble with history is that there's so much of it.

And most of the eye-witnesses are unavailable for comment.

Breaking News: Baghdad comes to Bristol. Colston has Fallen:

bit.ly/3cGXc40

David O on the TV called it right: Should not have happened. Should have been moved to a museum years ago.

So which racist on a plinth is next? Churchill? Cromwell? Gandhi?

We did very good history at school covering just about all parts of English history from the stone age actually and a lot about other countries' history too. 3 of my children have also read ancient history at university - even that has to be limited due to so much possible to cover - so that tends to be the ancient Greeks and Romans rather than the Neanderthals.

I hope we can all instil in our children a love of learning and about history of all kinds as it's fascinating. I used to go to the library to look up books as a teenager about history of all kinds of cultures. Now children have the internet so they are so lucky to have all that at their finger tips.

The British created the slave trade, they created the issues in Palestine, Kashmir, and Northern Ireland and are the cause of the Hindu-Muslim conflict in in South Asia. They also helped to sustain the inequality that led to the Chinese Republic.

So the british should apologise for the rest of time..

The trouble with history is that there's so much of it.

For goodness sake don't even try and spell science ...

I imagine you live in Britain though @GrumpyHoonMain
Living it up!

Someone else can take Grumpy.

I'm ranted out.

@Horehound - there hasn’t even been an initial apology for these matters. It’s like they’re trying to rewrite history, same as China. At least German /Japanese culture is trying to learn from it’s mistakes