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

Doesn't anyone concede that the British brought civilisation to many of these countries and started their journey to modern life?

Yes I do, but at what human cost? This cannot be forgotten

It's like saying that industrialisation brought Britain benefits, which it did, but without acknowledging that children as young as 4 years old laboured in coal mines and other industries in Britian. Was it worth it?

@PlanDeRaccordement Yes, my son is currently doing his GCSE History and was telling me this is what they are learning at school.

Feeling Guilty about it is one thing

Learning how to differentiate between MPs would be more useful
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52938162

What? The English didn't not start the salve-trade!

I can't believe that some people actually think they did.

African slaves were used in Ancient Greece, there is a long history of slavery in Europe.

@FreakStar the slave trade refers to African slaves brought to the Americas, only.

I agree OP there is a lot to be learned from what Germany has done with respect to the Holocaust. There are memorials and museums everywhere, it is embedded in school curriculums alongside a modern anti-racist programme, reparations have been made to survivors for years. Angela Merkel has been the most vocal European leader about not pandering to far-right extremists. She accepted a million Syrian refugees into Germany in one year.

I'm not going to say Germany has eradicated racism or anti-Semitism, these are still serious problems here. But there is a massive and obvious attempt to atone for what it did. To the point where one of the fastest-growing migrant communities in Berlin are Israelis.

I cant really judge someone still feeling the impact of the slave trade every single day for saying she doesnt fancy visiting somewhere so implicated with the slave trade.
I dont feel guilty at all but i do feel angry mainly how poor our education is on this subject so im still trying to get a grip on it in my 40s. I contantly have to challenge myself and i should have been taught all this in school. I found out that the pay off to the slave owners was something like half of gdp at the time and british people were still paying off the interest? until the 1990s. I was so angry my taxes went on this. Slave decendents living in the uk would have been paying this off.

the slave trade refers to African slaves brought to the Americas, only

Does it, why? That's the first I've heard of this.

The whole world participated in slave trade. I always wonder why Europe gets so much to hear about it but Africa, where the africans at the time happily raided the next village and sold off their fellow people, is seen as innocent.

Who have had/traded slave?
Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Brits, White USA, Egyptions, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Germans, The ottomans. (Turkey.) I am sure I could go. And yes even africans. (My knowledge of Asia is not that good but I believe there have been slaves in that part of the world as well.)

The English (British) ended the Atlantic slave trade by sending in the Royal Navy to intercept the slavers and bombard the slave-trader forts.

Africans started the Atlantic slave trade by offering slaves to Europeans who came looking for gold and ivory.

The Intra-African slave trade continues to this day across the Sahel.

A lot of British people were involved in slavery and made a lot of money out of it, but plenty more didn't. Talking about "The" anyone suggesting collective guilt shared by ethnicity is a blood libel.

There was also a slave trade going the other way, with plenty of celts from Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and Galicia carried away by the Barbary pirates well into the 19th century. (One epidsode of Poldark they never made.)

So English people alive today should flagellate themselves for something their ancient ancestors may or may not have done many years ago but actual slavers and people traffickers who are still using slaves all over Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (often to their own people) in the present day can continue unhindered?

Slavery goes back centuries, it was not exclusive to the English in any way.

If you visit the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, you can see that trading was done all over the world, not just to America.

As an example, all over Berlin we have little bronze plaques embedded in the sidewalks, with the names of people who were deported and murdered during the Holocaust, in front of the houses where they had previously lived. On my street alone there are dozens.

Imagine if you had something like this in the UK, in front of buildings and institutions that were built with the proceeds from slavery. Maybe that would convey to people the extent of the trade and how much Britain benefited.

But I don't see it ever happening. There is too much denial.

The English didn't start it. But the English did it pretty effectively and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Why is it so hard for people to just admit their ancestors did something terrible

Perhaps because most British peoples ancestors were not involved in it and could not have ended it, even they had wated to.
Also many in Britain, and Ireland, did want to end it. The abolition movement was very popular in and has links with the early trade union movement. There was also a whole industry which was at the forefront. The pottery industry produced many plates, cups and other items for pro abolition casues

The famous slogan "Am I Not a Man and a Brother" was reproduced on many items and pamphlets that were widely distributed

If her particular ancestors were taken by English people then she has every right to feel aggrieved on their behalf, regardless of the millennia of slavery from all other nations too. Even though slavery wasn't recognised as a crime then, it is clearly appropriate to call it a crime in hindsight, and her ancestors were victims of a crime; murder, rape and violence also accompanied slavery and were endemic wherever slaves were found. The Transatlantic Slave Trade was exceptional in its size, so that should also be recognised; Tony Blair officially apologised for Britain's role in 2007, and rightly so. Reparations were made to slave owners in what at the time was considered pragmatism by some (and considered utterly wrong by others) and not to slaves themselves, I'm not sure what reparations to descendants of slavery make sense at this distance of time because anything would likely be criticised as too little, given to the wrong people, missing people out etc.

It is fair for her to feel aggrieved on behalf of her ancestors, and she has every right to deprive the country of her tourist dollars if she doesn't want to visit. She also has a right to a view on reparations and to criticising even the current government if she feels that should be addressed. It isn't appropriate to hold a grudge against individuals from the country over 200 years after slavery was abolished, because that is placing blame on descendants many steps removed from those who committed and profited from those crimes. The world can't function if everyone places blame on children for the sins of his father, particularly if that extends into many generations and disregards official government apologies. Without actually talking with her, it's impossible to know if she perceives the difference or not. I certainly don't think any of us have a right to judge her views based just on the information provided by OP, often there is more nuance to be found when having a real conversation.

@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”

Why do you need to mention that she is ‘Black American’. Could you not just say you saw a post that said xyz? What are your motives in starting this conversation and mentioning her race? You have been working overtime on the race threads I see.

Rather than lambasting the average person, people who want to try and deal with the legacy of the slave trade could do a lot worse than join together with todays workers, and take on the obscene wealth that the bosses of today still enjoy. And vice versa.

But white British people now, in 2020 are benefitting from the sale of black lives.

It might hurt to challenge each other on that, if might be a huge mental leap for you but rather than telling black people what we should be upset or angry about and how and where we should direct our energy. Why don’t white people direct their energy at examining the privilege they have enjoyed for many years because of the lives of black people? Rather than telling black people where white would people would prefer them to direct their energy.

If an African-American woman refers to “the slave trade” she means the transatlantic slave trade which took enslaved Africans to the Americas in their millions. Affecting not to understand that is ludicrous. It’s like having a go at me when I say “secondary age children won’t be back at school until September” because “actually Taiwanese schools are running a full curriculum”.

Why is it so hard for people to just admit their ancestors did something terrible

Does this just count for people who are 100% english? Or is my DNA test says I have 40%, should I be worried?

dreamingbohemian -they have that in a lot of german towns when we lived there. Id like to see a lot more things like that in the uk.

According to judge Mathis (who claims to be malcolm x cousin) the Africans themselves used to sell slaves to white people when they didnt want to pay the village leaders they would hunt them down themselves and kidnap them for slaves

I'm descended from traveller community I'm not losing any sleep over the slave trade because I can't even trace my family tree because of this 🤷‍♀️ I could literally be from anywhere

The English did not start the slave trade, nor did they make the bulk of their wealth from it (which seems even worse to me - all that and they didn't even "need" it). They did participate in it and it remains a terrible crime.

...Cont'd

Regards the New World, if anyone 'started' it, it was the Spanish.

Regards the Elgin Marbles, thank Lord Elgin for saving them from the Turks who were going to dissolve them in quicklime to make cement, from the Nazis who would have had them away, and from the Athenian traffic pollution that would have dissolved them long before they got round to building the museum they propose to put them in.

(Not even the Greeks are proposing to put them back on the Pathenon.)

And equating Ancient Athens with the modern Greek Republic is like saying the Crown of Charlemagne belongs to the EU.