Cambridge University Slavery Research

[CallumDansTransitVan]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/31/ex-tory-mp-threatens-sue-cambridge-university-slavery-research-antoinette-sandbach

Read this article today & I'm sure it will bring mixed feelings. Interested to know other peoples thoughts on it.

My personal feeling is if I had been the lady in question. I would of ignored her name being included, as the likelihood was that the paper in question would of been fogotten about fairly quickly.
But I do believe she should not be outed for the actions of ancestors who were dead long before she came into existence. Nor do I see any justification for including her name on the paper.

Before anyone starts on oh but she has family wealth due to the history. None of these families were exactly paupers even before slavery.

That’s such an admirable approach - your kids are lucky to have you to help them process this part of there history . Yes, it is history but it is still part of the fabric of your being and impacts on your world view.

She would have been better to have said nothing. I imagine her concern is that of financial repatriations.

The ethics of it might be up for discussion, but the suppression of information like that by people of privilege also has massive ethical implications

good point

Our country needs to be honest. We benefitted from slavery and Empire for hundreds of years. We plundered the world, invading, murdering, stealing.

But read any international history and you realise we were not alone. It wasn't just European Empires, all continents had their exploitative, cruel Empires.

The idea of living in peace with other countries is a surprisingly modern one, which in Europe, is probably the result of two brutal and extended 'world' wars. And even now the forces of Empire are devastating Ukraine and her people.

This modern attempt to pretend that the benefits of slavery in Britain can be limited to a few families is wrong. Those benefits are everywhere, but we can take some pride from the role we played in ending the North Atlantic slave trade. Eventually we realised and acted while many other countries, African countries included, wanted to prolong that trade.

There is also a strong link between the exploitation of labour (the poor in Britain, enslaved people in the Americas) - rich people do this to get richer. Yes, the poor in Britain benefited from slavery in terms of access to colonial goods and the further opportunities of employment brought by industrialisation and empire - but it wasn’t done for the benefit of the poor. Look at Drax, a Conservative MP still with a sugar plantation and a huge walled estate in Dorset - and blame his ancestors or the Dorset farm labourers transported to Australia for forming a union to help find s as way out of poverty?

She wasn’t singled out - it was a specific piece of research about that specific man’s family history and her family was directly probably connected.

Her family enslaved his family.

She benefits from the generational power and wealth, as demonstrated neatly by her current position of power, wealth and influence.

He gets to be on the receiving end of her power wealth & influence, and so the harm continues down the generations.

You could argue she was not singled out if she is the only current surviving member of the family. I'd be doubtful that all living descendants and their finances found it into the paper or onto his webchat.

As previously stated, how long does time have to pass before it ceases to be the current generations fault? I don't know the families entire financial history, as I'm sure neither you nor the author do. Stating that any money made came from proceeds of slavery simply cannot be proven. As an example, in the past 200 years one of them may of married into another wealthy family.

I'm not sure a claim that he is enduring under the thumb of the White Woman when you read his wiki page.
He is currently a 57 year old 3rd Year PHD student at Cambridge. In prior years he got a BA Honours in Geography & Sociology from Liverpool University & a MA in New Media Production from Liverpool Screen School.

In between he seems to have spent his time playing music, writing poems and going on talk shows/fesitvals promoting black rights etc. Given that length of time in further education, I'd suggest the UK has done OK by him.

how long does time have to pass before it ceases to be the current generations fault?

Is he saying it's her fault?

So you haven't actually seen the Ted talk (which is what I assume you mean by "web chat", you just decided yo make an inflammatory thread about it after getting bored of lecturing black people about how golliw*gs aren't racist.

after getting bored of lecturing black people about how golliwgs aren't racist.*

Oh for fuck's sake! OP, sort your head out. Honestly, posting history should somehow be flagged before people engage. What a waste of everyone's time.

The research is absolutely brilliant. For the same reason we teach about the Holocaust in school, we have to face facts to avoid history repeating itself. The first sign of a failing society is bans on books, misinformation, etc. - the masking of truth. If we can’t hold ourselves accountable for the truth and reality of our existence, who will? Better to own up to who you are and how you got there, and do what’s right with it. It almost never happens, and look at the world now and where it’s headed.

I’m saying this as a descendent of slave owners. I would never object to that information being shared either, as I’ve shared it with my community quite openly, and have done everything I can to push back on the culture that slavery created.

And both ends of the spectrum do it. I just would like to know what the end game is. We all need to learn about the history of slavery, all of it. Then what? What is the goal? Will it help end present-day slavery? What is the end game?

Slavery wasn't the only evil, although it was an enormous one, of colonialism or Empire.
For 300 years we were the Putins of our day. We invaded, conquered and annexed a quarter of the Globe.
We plundered the countries of their wealth and their people. That made us very rich.

I do however agree that what we were doing was what every civilisation had done and was doing. We were just doing it on a global scale. We were the best at exploiting our fellow people.

Wow that is fascinating, but of course it’s also a distressing thing to uncover. You’re not responsible for your GGGGrandfather’s actions, but, AS is in a position of power and privilege… is she still benefiting from the actions of her ancestors? Is our country still being run by descendants of slave owners, due to the power that has been handed down to them as a result?

That’s really interesting. My ancestors left the U.K. and worked on slave plantations in Gyuana. Apparently as indentured servants which I guess doesn’t make them as bad as the plantation owners. Plus there was a “mixing” of servants and slaves when it came to relationships so some of my ancestors were also slaves.

it’s so long ago that I can’t get worked up about it at all. It does seem a bit unfair that she’s been named when it was nothing to do with her and he’s only named her and nobody else? But it’s probably only in the press as she’s kicked up a fuss.

I’ve just been googling and apparently Samual sandbach paid 35k compensation in the 1800s to his ex slaves. Which would have been a considerable amount of money then.

he also had “several” children so any inheritance she got generations later would have been very diluted due to time and numbers of children.

It's not a pleasant one to discover and is unsettling but nothing our family can do about it.

You don't get to request which family you are born into though. There are many who have benefitted from multiple horrific events throughout history. Doesn't mean the present day is in control of that.

What I find wrong with this paper is only listing her because she's in the public eye. You either list all descendents fully found or none. As for how the country is run this is dependent on the MP. Lords is still very posh but there are a few who don't have generational wealth.

I love history and am supportive of anyone trying to wrangle the morally complex truth of Britain's past - but the idea that history is important because it stops us making the same mistakes is (for me) the pinnacle of desperate human optimism.

I don't for one second believe that the crimes and tragedies of the past would not happen again, given the right circumstances. I think we humans are fundamentally programmed to exploit whatever we can for our own gain. The repetition of war, especially, seems inevitable. As the World Wars fade into the distant past, any lessons learned from them are being forgotten and war will come again. And with war comes the devaluation of human life - and awful crimes against people.

OP’s latest argument boils down to well he’s had a good life in the UK so he shouldn’t get uppity and say true things about the white people who previously enslaved his family. Oh, and the money magically vanished or was diluted or something and you can’t prove otherwise so stop talking about that too.

FFS

Oh you sweet summer child.

The £35k (worth over £3million today without considering any interest or return on investment) was paid to Sandbach by the government to compensate him for the loss of his slaves. The compensation went to slave owners not slaves.

Oh that makes more sense. 🙈. Well it doesn’t, but you know what I mean!

I feel it was a fair response to your claim that Malik Al Nasir is still suffering under the control of Ms Sandbach.

WinterFireJanuaryEmbers
Agree wholeheartedly. But we must also be careful that in researching history we don't place the sins of the Fathers on current descendants. How often do we hear terms like 'White Privilege' or 'White Racism' in discussions where African slavery is part of the topic. If we carry on claiming certain groups are privileged because of their skin colour we will encourage their racism eventually, as well as devalue situations of serious racism.

Takoneko
I'm assuming it was a typo in VeloVixens post. But she is quite correct that any money given to the family in the 1830's will have been considerably diluted 200 years on.
The other thing we must question with the compensation scheme at the time. Had it not existed, how much longer would slavery have continued. How many more people would of suffered the trade.

Sorry just posted and saw VeloVixens reply.