Slavery and Colonialism Are Everyone’s History

[GodessOfThunder]

I was on a thread recently where posters were complaining of slavery and colonialism being “shoehorned” into exhibitions, and were strongly “pushing back” against it being given prominence as a topic in museums and at historic sites. Indeed, transatlantic slavery and colonialism often seem to be regarded as niche historical subjects of interest more to people of colour, and involving only a small number of rich white slave owners and colonial officials.

This perception however, does not reflect reality. Transatlantic slavery effected not only millions of Africans, but pretty much everyone in Britain too. Similarly, colonialism effected not only millions of subjects in the British Empire, but everyone “at home” also. The economy these projects fuelled changed what ordinary people ate and drank and what they wore. They changed how British people thought about non-European people in ways that continue to shape their mindset and create injustice today. Slavery and colonialism helped fund the Industrial Revolution and the jobs people in Britain performed, and much more too.

I’m not suggesting anyone today should feel guilty for these activities. But, these subjects are still all too often not regarded as part of all of our histories. This means attempts to give them proper prominence are met with resistance. If we are to understand British history at a public level properly there is still a great deal of work to do.

Yet again you're arguing for why it should be taught as its own separate topic area. The contentious nature of The Troubles is exactly why it should be taught. Kids need to know not everything can be resolved easily, that the knock on effect from decision A is XYZ.

but when hugely important events like the abolition of slavery for the first time in human history are omitted from the teaching (or only briefly mentioned in passing)

Careful. The British were not the first “in human history” to abolish slavery. That honour belongs to Emperor Wang Mang of the Xin Dynasty in 9 AD. Unfortunately he was assassinated by his nobles who didn’t like losing their slaves in 23 AD and slavery came back.

They were the first to abolish the transatlantic slave trade, and then to free the slaves from that specific trade. Not so big an accomplishment when you look at the timeline of slavery being abolished globally.

Most of us have benefitted very little from slavery - just a few who owned plantations and took part in the trade.

This is simply not true.

Transatlantic Slavery and its aftermath had a profound effect on all parts of British society, and Britain's economic, political and cultural institutions. If you are interested, you could take a look at some of the findings of the UCL Legacies of Slavery project I linked to earlier.

it's wrong to blame ordinary people for slavery or claim that they still benefit from it.

"Blame", for me, is a strange and loaded concept in this debate. Ordinary British people then weren't to blame for slavery. Ordinary British people now aren't to blame for what happened in the past.

But...

Britain through its colonial invasions, with slavery as a big part of that (free labour - even notwithstanding the degradation and cruelty involved), became a global superpower. The national infrastructure, global status and economic power that we all enjoy now was built off the back of Empire. British Empire-builders stripped countries and continents of their natural resources. British slavers stripped them of their people.

You don't have to have someone to blame to note that British society benefitted economically from slavery and many structural global inequalities were built from it.

Of course, there are also many ordinary British people whose ancestors were bought and sold, beaten and raped, transported across the world for the financial gain of British millionaires whose names still adorn fine buildings and businesses and whose statues still stand in our city centres and town squares.

There is absolutely a psychological and physical toll of the legacy of slavery that hangs around today.

There's a massive leap from 'it's complicated' to 'there's not much I can do about it'. That wasn't the implication of my post at all.
There is a throughline to modern slavery (as my post said) but it is more complicated to police a myriad of different networks rather than campaigning against one or two governments. That's a logistical fact. It doesn't negate that the campaigning needs to happen. It doesn't negate that people with the same vulnerabilities will always be the ones targeted. It doesn't negate that certain organisations (whether they be corporate or governmental) are currently benefitting from modern slavery.

Good grief! And this comment is why we precisely need to teach our children the true, objective, history of our country, the good and the bad. But it seems that the “bad” is being ignored and/or downplayed. Scary.

I really dislike this factoid, it is estimated that there are more (illegally kept) slaves today than ever before because the planet has 7 billion people. It’s a meaningless statistic and doesn’t mean slavery is at its height today.

When you look at it on a per capita basis, as in what % of the global population is enslaved, slavery is the lowest it has ever been.

Does “society” have some sort of pre-determined universal purpose?

Haiti and Denmark also got in there before Britain. Yes, there are differences, but, as you say, we should not so ready to congratulate ourselves.

This is a bit waffly so apologies. But i would say yes, it does. It's the social contract. 'Society' is a form of control. But for the greater good. A good type of control. As i said, waffly :)

Neither modern not historic slavery negates the other but I'm not sure how one can decide that the correct measure for how bad slavery is to consider it on a per capita rather than an absolute number basis. That sort of thinking is very grim in its own way!

What needs to also be understood is how the world made Britain.

Hence this thread.

Yes, as did the Mughal Empire, Korea, Japan and others.

Yes and that series helps someway with understanding it.

Yes. I'm not a sociologist but my understanding is that society is there to set up a series of laws, opportunities and cultural practices to protect the welfare of the individuals. This will by its very nature include expansion.

Of course it’s the correct way to determine how prevalent slavery is. You can’t say that slavery is at a peak or it’s height without making the numbers of slaves from 200 or 2,000 years directly comparable to the numbers of slaves today. The only way to do that is to adjust for the difference in total population.

Modern day slavery has a wider definition than the historic chattel slavery so it would be prudent to take that into account as well when comparing them.

In addition, not all forced labour/unfree labour is slavery. Conscription into the armed forces is unfree/forced labour but it is not slavery. The same with convict labour- also a type of unfree labour but it is not slavery.

I’d add in “elite” before individuals as most societies are hierarchical and not egalitarian. The elites set up society and then run/manipulate it to preserve their position at the top with most of the wealth and all the power.

@Dotjones "When slavery was legal in Britain most people didn't have a vote and had no say over policy."

Slavery in England was abolished by the Normans. There hasn't been slavery in England for nearly a thousand years, and back then pretty much no-one had a vote. The country was ruled by an absolute monarch.

The colonies were different, but they were allowed a great deal of freedom in how they set themselves up and were governed. And with that gift of freedom in administration came abhorrent practices like slavery. Maybe England/Britain should have exercised more control over the colonial governments and there are strong arguments both for and against this level of imperial control.

I'm not sure that is the main issue tbh.

Most people (if not all) do understand that 'the world made Britain' and actually that is simplistic in itself - England is not Britain and the English colonised the Celtic nations before, during and after they looked overseas. But yy at a basic level, everyone in Britain (regardless of their personal, family past) benefits from Britain's past to a greater or lesser extent.

The issue arises in how others (usually external to the UK ) want that 'understanding' to be manifested. And how much energy, time, resources and finances should be directed to 'manifesting' that understanding.

This thread is about to be inundated with the usual trolls pushing their own agendas. Which is unfortunate because the discussion has been interesting and thoughtful.

But part of the problem with these discussions happening on social media is that the loudest, most aggressive voices become the ones trying to demand that 'understanding' is manifested in a way that pleases them. Despite the fact they are completely unaware of the school curriculum or/and the local disadvantaged and vulnerable communities that suffered to build the 'Empire'.

My friend's Irish gran was taken away from her family as a child to work in an Englishman's home as a servant - where she was abused. My DH's family had DCs taken and sent to Australia. Any reckoning has to be nuanced enough to recognise and hold all those injustices imo. Does that mean reparations? Does it mean government acknowledgement? Does it mean special museums dedicated to all the vulnerable and oppressed? I think those are the answers we need to work on. Otherwise nothing is learnt, and we're always at the mercy of the most ignorant.

Empire is central to our history and understanding the modern world.

How can we understand the current war in the Ukraine if we don't understand the history between the British, Russian and Ottoman Empires in Crimea? Same for pretty much any issue in the middle East.

How can we understand why English is the most widely spoken language if we don't understand the British Empire? How can we understand why we have a brown PM with roots in India and Africa if we don't understand the British Empire? How can we understand modern immigration if we don't understand the long history of British emigration? How can we understand that chicken tikka masala is the most popular dish in the UK if we don't understand Empire? How can we understand the difference in educational attainment between black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean if we don't understand Empire? How can we understand the influence of public schools if we don't understand Empire?

The British Empire is still within living memory and still impacts every aspect of our lives. It's central to our history.

It fits the literal definition of prevalence - but not of badness. It's one of those situations where you don't compare awful with awful.

Agree that chattel slavery and modern slavery are not directly equivalent. But again what does that mean really? They share structural features and they are ethically wrong on the same basis. And the connection to history remains strong - for example when you consider convict labour in the USA and consider who is most likely to be convicted and why.

It just seems like sometimes history is a comfortable place to explore because it's at a safe distance and we can use it to stoke out egos one way or the other. But actually making any material sacrifices in the present to help people experiencing slavery, forced labour and whatever you want to call it - sadly rather unlikely for most people.

To understand the factions within Africa you need to understand the Belgian, German, Portuguese and French colonisers too.
Then you also need to understand the modern equivalent of empire building - practised ably by the US - through resources and circulatory aid/building programmes in Africa and Asia; and through proxy wars pushing a neo-con agenda.

Interesting point there. But history is 'easier' to digest because you have time to think about it isn't it. Sometimes with current affairs it moves so fast that it's hard to see what's staring you in the face.

History also allows us to finger point without having to inconvenience ourselves. It's easy to say 'the Empire was bad' as though it's in the past. Slightly more difficult to say well the way US companies continue to monopolise African resources is equally bad. (see the case against Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla in 2019/2020).
We can (rightly) become upset about DCs being exploited before we were born but it's more uncomfortable to look at the child miners in the DRC risking their lives so we can have coltan and cobalt in our mobile phones and laptops. We're all complicit. But some people would like to think only others are ever to blame.

Chattel slavery of nonChristians was abolished by the Normans. Serfdom (which is a type of slavery where the slave is part of real property- like a tree or a fish pond as apposed to chattel slavery where the slave is personal property) was abolished under Elizabeth I.

So in the 1600s from James I onwards, it was still perfectly legal to have and trade in chattel slaves so long as they were not Christians. In the case of Ireland, they pretty much decided that Catholics were worse than nonChristians as they were popish heretics. This loophole in the Europe wide historic laws against chattel slavery of Christians was one many other European countries also exploited- that the prohibition only applied to their sort of Christianity.

The colonies didn’t go off piste by engaging in slavery and the slave trade. It was set up from London and the Crown was heavily invested in it.