Britain without the slave trade?

[FancyFanny]

There's lots of talk of how the Britain's wealth was a result of the slave trade an colonialism and how we should all be trying to pay that back and rectify it some how.

I just wondered what people think Britain would be like today if those things had never happened?

And most of those stately homes are no longer owned by the families who built them (on said proceeds). Generally they were handed over in lieu of inheritance taxes in the mid-20th century.

The only reparations I know of are from nation to nation as a sorry for starting a world war (Germany to Allies x 2) or sorry for nuking your cities (USA to Japan).

Even the original trible leaders that willing sold their fellow people and people's captured from other tribes, without them the slave trade could never existed

Germany paid reparations to the Allies after the war.

@Throwncrumbs Germany paid reparations after ww1. This has been noted as a cause of WW2.
Not saying reparations are bad though.

English Heritage is doing a lot of research on this, particularly wrt to the work of the Quakers, women activists, including previously enslaved women.

Just wondering what reparations have been made in the past, at the risk of inflaming the debate I can only think of Israel, as in created after ww2.
The creation of Israel was not reparations.

Well that’s not true. The transatlantic slave trade could certainly have existed without African kingdoms being complicit. But what you may not know it was very much a sell slaves to the Europeans or be sold as a slave to the Europeans. It was a choice that was no choice at all.

If you didn’t start a war on a pretext with the next door Kingdom, capture people and sell them as slaves, then you wouldn’t be paid in guns and money which you needed to defend yourself from your other neighbouring kingdom from making war on you, capturing your people and selling you down the river as slaves.

And the Europeans wanted more and more slaves, and more and more European weapons were needed to protect your people from being enslaved. It was a terrible fearful time of constant wars and caused the collapse of many beautiful African cultures, even some that were very ancient civilisations.

If Britain hadn't of been in the slave trade, then I'd expect that English would be a minor language and Britain would be a small and unimportant country. America and Australia would probably be speaking French/Portuguese/Spanish and they would be the major languages of the world. All the people who were oppressed would probably have been oppressed by a different large European country.

When we were taught about slavery at school it really focused on the experience of the slave, particularly on the ship and on the plantation. Id never really thought about the fear of the people left behind and the constant threat/war.

Well, yes many women were fervent abolitionists but to speculate that if women had the vote, slavery would have been abolished earlier is white feminism.

If women in Britain had had the vote, it would have been along the lines of class. The U.K. didn’t even let working class people vote until 1918. So the women voting would have been the rich, elite women whose lives of luxury depended on the slave trade. They would have been no more likely, imho, to view slaves as human and worthy of freedom. In some ways they might have been less likely because the societal mores of the time kept rich women very sequestered and in strictly limited social circles. Whereas a rich man might in the course of business work with or hire a free Black man and grow to respect him, a rich woman would on encounter Black people in roles of servitude.

It is very common for white feminists to distract from their history by blaming the worlds woes all on men and patriarchy. While I do not dispute the oppression of women and their general powerlessness, I do dispute the white feminist assertion that if they’d had power, they’d have been so much better, more moral, more ethical, superior than how the men who had power were.

I live in Liverpool so personally my life
would be very very different. The amazing buildings and docks I see every week wouldn’t be there, would be interesting to see.

But that doesn't explain the healthy African slave trade that was there before the Europeans arrived.

Historically, have any countries not participated in slavery ?

There is still modern slavery

There are similar articles for South America, pre European Times. Who built the Mayan & Aztec pyramids ?

https://www.iias.asia/the-newsletter/article/human-trafficking-asia-1900-preliminary-census

It does if you look at the numbers. Prior to Europeans deciding they were going to colonise two entire continents with African slaves, the slave trade within and out of Africa went along historic routes over the Sahara into North Africa and from there to the Middle East and Southern Europe. This was at a rate of around a 10,000 people per year taken from all Africa.

This slave trade continued during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade which was an additional 10,000 people per year by 1670 (20k total), then an additional 20,000 (30k total) people per year by 1700, then an additional 50,000 (60k total) people per year by 1750 until abolition by Britain in 1807 after which it gradually tapers off.

The population was 20-25 million people in that region of Africa right before the Transatlantic slave trade. Afterwards, most of central Africa was depopulated.

To try and help you visualise the impact, we can apply this to London. There are currently 10.5 million people in London. About half of the ones that were in Africa.

Now imagine London having to catch and sell as slaves half of the above.
For thirty years, catch and sell 10,000 Londoners every year
For fifty years, catch and sell 15,000 Londoners every year
For fifty seven years, catch and sell 30,000 Londoners every year

If you cannot see how such demand would cause London to descend into savage enslave or be enslaved warfare in a ruined landscape of devastation, then I’m not sure any explanation could. And this isn’t even counting all the lives lost in these wars from being outright killed.

I can indeed see how the Europeans becoming involved increased the demand for slaves, and how it would increase the internal instability of some of the African nations involved, but it doesn't absolve the African nations that supplied the slaves as it built on an already existing infrastructure and culture based on slavery.

The fact that African kingdoms already had slavery, like everyone else did isn’t a justification at all for holding them responsible for the transatlantic slave trade in any way because the transatlantic slave trade was clearly on another level of hell.

Too, the culture and infrastructure were not slave based preTransatlantic slave trade. Many African cultures were erased and forced to become slave based due to the pressure of the transatlantic slave trade. It’s wrong to confuse what was there after Europeans arrived, was there before they arrived.

Imagine Russia claiming that Ukraine’s culture and infrastructure is very military based because they had a military before the invasion and so they’re complicit in the war. That’s no different from the connections you are making.

At the same time, it seems the African kingdoms started it to begin with, yes Europeans amplified the trade.

Africa didn’t start the transatlantic slave trade!

Not one slave ship crossing the Atlantic flew an African flag or went to an African colony.

You can’t ‘amplify’ that which did not exist.

Your last paragraph is very much a strawman.

It ignores that some African nations were complicit in the slave trade and and were already rich from slavery before the Europeans arrived.

Well that would be because we have already discussed that it wasn’t complicity but a race for survival.

Apologies, based on previous information from other mumsnetters the slave trade was already thriving in the African kingdoms, they were the originator of slaves, yes Europeans started the trans Atlantic slave trade, but Europeans didn't begin the slave trade.

And the African kingdoms were not rich from slavery. 🤣
They were usually rich through trade in ivory, jewels, gold, textiles, salt and exotic animals.

Then how would you characterise the slavery in African kingdoms because apparently Africans didn't get rich from it ?

There is no one overall “the slave trade.” There is slavery/slave trades. Transatlantic slave trade was one slave trade among many slave trades.

The Europeans began the transatlantic slave trade, not Africans.

Slavery was begun in prehistoric times, no one knows who “started it” and it’s irrelevant really because you’d be going back to 30,000 years ago at least. So we all began slavery which in historic times operated along many recognised slave trades with specific trade routes. These have been mapped out by historians and were on every continent before Europeans age of exploration brought them globe trotting.

Slavery was still a global fixture at the time the transatlantic slave trade began. It was a new slave trade.