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

@DGRossetti

Of course, there's a corollary that it's easy to protest when it costs nothing - like from behind a keyboard smile. And I happily include myself in that sentiment.

Yes but it's good to debate this stuff and constantly push the logic.

I am currently attending an international conference and so can't fully engage atm but am trying to keep up as I am interested in this. Even if it is in nature (your ant example) don't we use religion as the place to say we are better than that - our animal nature?

As we know, the King James bible was completed in 1611about the same time as the Atlantic slave trade was really getting underway. Is it any coincidence that the bible should be condoning slavery?

I don't think there is any translation which would be able to avoid the definition as we understand it of "slave" no matter how hard you tried. (There are additional complications in the politics of the KJB which had to be subtly written to excise Catholicism and underscore the divine right of Kings ...)

I know a lot of writers would love to use "servant" instead of "slave" wherever they can in the Bible (and classical texts). But the bottom line is the context makes it clear it is slavery that is being discussed. Zero consent involved or desired.

@DGRossetti

Do you know any passages that talk more about slavery - any other references that are not about how you should 'treat' your slave but anything about the moral ownership - is there anything?

I am currently attending an international conference and so can't fully engage atm but am trying to keep up as I am interested in this. Even if it is in nature (your ant example) don't we use religion as the place to say we are better than that - our animal nature?

Speak for yourself. Some also use religion to impress the exact opposite while still declaring it makes them better than animals.

I'm wary of people who need a book to be nice to other people. And if they don't need it, why not throw it away ?

I don't have answers. I don't have certainties. If you want either, then log off mumsnet and buy the Daily Mail or the Express. They are never uncertain about anything and always seem to have the answers. (Although I guess semantically a wrong answer is still an answer).

I'm not at a conference today. But maybe I should be

Do you know any passages that talk more about slavery - any other references that are not about how you should 'treat' your slave but anything about the moral ownership - is there anything?

Best starting point is Exodus (either the Bible book or the Bob Marley album). There's quite a bit in there because that's where God gives Moses the commandments and quite a few of them are very very clear about slaves (with, as I noted, a rather unpleasant need to mention "male" and "female" slaves).

Richard Herring has a wonderfully funny and insightful dissection of the commandments in "Christ on a Bike" (which a friend of my walked out of ...). As he points out the commandments are incontrovertibly the word of God. The rest of the Bible is all second hand gossip. But we know that God Himself dictated the commandments to Moses. Which is a shame, as he clearly is no great orator.

@DGRossetti

Part of the problem I think is extracting the cultural elements that surrounded religious practice that people don't seem to want to lose. My friend, who is Muslim, doesn't believe in God, can hold a critical conversation on Islam but loves the culture and practices.

I don't have answers either @DGRossetti - just more and more questions but I think the gospel rather than the Bible has some direction.

You can see Deuteronomy Chapter 20 for instructions on taking slaves (and on slaughtering entire cities that resist you). It's pretty brutal.

There is a real tension in the Christian Bible between the Old Testament, where you find all these nasty passages justifying great evils, and the New Testament, which is all Jesus telling people to love everyone. Technically the NT should override the OT but lots of people ignore that.

If you are interested in the roots of slavery as a human practice, to a large extent it began as a practical solution for what to do with captives after war-fighting in primitive societies. If you defeat another tribe or group in battle, you don't want to just let the survivors go because they will turn around and attack you. Often, a tribe might solve this problem by just killing everyone on the defeated side. But a more appealing solution might be to take them as slaves and put them to work for you. This became more common as ancient civilisations grew and needed more labourers.

Basically there was a very tight link between slavery and war/conquest. The idea of raiding to capture slaves and sell them on the market developed later.

Obviously the whole story is way more complex than this, but just a short version.

Thanks @dreaming

Isn't there also a line of thought that says it is the obligation of the rich to 'look after' the poor and that what we call slavery is seen by the rich historically as paternal obligation?

I'm not condoning that btw just trying to identify the lines of thought that historically legitimized it.

Often, a tribe might solve this problem by just killing everyone on the defeated side.

It may seem a bit hollow, but as a rule humans really don't want to kill one another and left to their own devices often don't. (Why do you think we invented religion).

Also there's a certain Darwinian imperative to slavery ... we've conquered you, so we are better suited and have the "right" to control you.

This became more common as ancient civilisations grew and needed more labourers.

There's a parallel with the current world (or is it just Western) economic model that is predicated upon endless and infinite "growth". Only we've run out of lands to conquer and people to subdue.

Interesting confluence of Colston and Christianity here - from 2017. Clearly what happened yesterday was not a random act of vandalism, but something which has been bubbling under for much longer.

In a way, I think we need to be grateful that David Cameron made us more aware of "The Big Society" and how we all can work together. I might drop him a tweet later.

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-church-refuses-host-most-782798

William Wordsworth was a devout Christian, the film Amazing Grace is interesting. John Wesley was an Abolitionist

Only fundamentalists use the Old Testament as any guidance on how to behave. The New Testament is what non fundamentalists use. Those hostile to Christianity often only quote from the Old Testament.

Right thinking Christians will follow their own consciences - knowing they have a duty to keep their conscience well informed.

You need an Irish passport op, we’re loved everywhere we go

Seems anyone paying tax before 2015 was paying slaveowners for the abolition of slavery. How do folk feel now ?

Apparently British taxpayers, some of whom may be black, were paying off the compensation to dispossessed former slave owners up until 2015:

16 Feb 2018
'Petition demands British Government refunds taxpayer the money that paid
off slavery debt

'... In 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act made owning a slave illegal,
but slave owners received compensation for their loss of "property",
a sum of money for every slave they owned at that moment.

'...Thousands of slave owners received compensation. It totalled £20
million and they received it as a one-off payment in 1833.
Slaves themselves received nothing ...

'The £20 million at the time was a huge amount of money – and added an extra 40 per cent onto the normal Government expenditure in that one year, 1833. As an equivalent measure, 40 per cent of Government expenditure now would be more than £300 billion.

'The Government borrowed the money to make those payments,
and the debt was so big it took 182 years to pay back. That anyone paying tax before February 2015 was paying the debt back from that 1833 pay out.'

The decision was taken in 1833, it was a loan. I would have disagreed with paying off slaveowners, but I can understand why it might have seemed like the pragmatic option at the time. The government's use of money isn't the fault of those who gave the loan. As that government's decisions go, I have far more of an issue with slaveowners having kept slaves working for years afterwards.

I don't think the people writing the petition understand how money works, if "the government" pay it back then taxpayers need to pay the government for paying it back, that's just an endless loop. IMO we're also too far from 1833 for effective and fair asset confiscation from descendants, the inheritance tax and inflation analysis would be much too complicated, but if someone did the analysis it could be interesting.

Seems anyone paying tax before 2015 was paying slaveowners for the abolition of slavery. How do folk feel now ?

No, whoever wrote this is ignorant and poorly informed.

It is true that slave-owners were paid for the abolition of slavery. And that this was financed with a perpetual bond.

Perpetual means not that it lasts forever, but rather that it lasts until paid off, and then every year the government pays interest on it.

The bond was issued in 1835 at 3%.

In 1927 it was refinanced www.dmo.gov.uk/media/9782/announcement291226.pdf

A maturity date of 1957 or later was set, and 4% interest.

Between 1835 and WW1 there was almost no inflation, so £100 in 1835 was £110 in 1914. So the 3% interest was quite nice. Inflation started in WW1, and by 1927 the value of £100 in 1914 was only £54.

As a perpetual loan the government had to pay 4% interest annually. This was an amazingly good deal in the 70s, for example, where the government would have had to pay double digit interest to borrow money. Those who had purchase these consols at £100 would have found the value of their investment fall to as low as £35 at some points, since the interest payable was just £4 a year, which would have been ludcriously bad in the 70s or 80s

However by 2015 4% was a bad deal and we could borrow money more cheaply. So the government rightly repaid all perpetual loans and re-borrowed on a fixed term basis at a cheaper rate.

As the loan was never supposed to be repaid, it makes no sense to say that taxpayers were repaying it in 2015.

Rather, tax payers in the 19th century paid a REAL 3% (since there was no interest) on £20 million, which is to say £600,000 per year. Inflation eventually wiped this out and made this number completely irrelevant.

The UK population was then 25 million, so this was equivalent to about sixpence a year per capita. GDP was then £600 million, so we agreed to reduce GDP by 0.1% per year permanently to pay off the slaveowners. The equivalent today would be about £33/year/capita

The £300 billion figure isn't credible or relevant because the money was borrowed and the actual spending was the £600,000, whereas government spending was then £50 million per year, so this was 1.2% of government spending.

Current government spending is £772 billion, so a more credible comparator would be £9 billion in spending. That's approximately the size of the net UK contribution to the EU, for context.

Only fundamentalists use the Old Testament as any guidance on how to behave. The New Testament is what non fundamentalists use. Those hostile to Christianity often only quote from the Old Testament.

Only Fundamentalists adhere to the Ten Commandments?

William Wordsworth was a devout Christian, the film Amazing Grace is interesting. John Wesley was an Abolitionist

it wouldn't be very accurate to say that taxpayers were paying ANYTHING towards the loan in 2015 in that while interest was being paid, measured anytime from 1914 the government made a very large profit on the loan in that it was paying far less than inflation.

If I borrow $10000 Zimbabwe Dollars from you and buy a house, and agree to pay you $300 ZD for ever, but now my house is worth 100 trillion Zimbabwe Dollars it would be fair to say that I never repaid the debt.

Thus since inflation was higher than 4% for at least the past 60 years, no effective repayment was being made on the debt.

William Wordsworth was a devout Christian, the film Amazing Grace is interesting. John Wesley was an Abolitionist

Amazing Grace was written by a slave trader who came to realise what an abomination slavery was and the 'amazing grace' that meant he understood that God had forgiven him.

In the Arab states slave labour is very much alive and thriving right now.
Maybe we need to take a look at that as well?

Weren't the British the first to end it as well?
Britain did more than any nation in history to abolish the slave trade. The British navy even established the West Africa Squadron to suppress the Atlantic slave trade

From 1808-1860 the British navy captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.
Also didn't African chieftains sell other Africans into slavery. And some 'freed men' also owned slaves.

Sorry I meant William Wilberforce, we are not discussing Daffodils

Do you mean William Wilberforce not William Wordsworth?

If Wikipedia is to be believed John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, continued in the slave trade for several years after his Damascene conversion, and the sinful behaviour to which he refers was drinking, cussing and general disobedience, rather than the enslavement and murder of his fellow human beings. However he did eventually see the light and work for abolition and there’s no denying that many prominent white abolitionists of the 1700s were influenced by their religious belief.

Yes