EMPIRE- did you know this history?

[Needacupofteaandcrackers]

Just watched Empire on BBC….. I didn’t realise the timelines of how long it was tolerated. I’ve been to a few trust sites and only now I’m made to connections on wealth. 🥹

The Belgians were the worst!

And even further back-the feudal system meant slavery for the serfs and villeins, all of the great ancient civilisations were built by the labour of slaves-Egypt, Rome and Greece. And the huge civil engineering works in the Chinese colonised Himalayas were built on he forced labour of the Tibetans.

I would recommend 'Breaking the Chains', by Adam Hochschild, on how, and why, Britain was at the forefront of abolishing the slave trade.
He also wrote King Leopolds Ghost, about Belgian involvement in the Congo. Another great read.

And in Jane Eyre. Mr Rochester’s family wealth came from the colonies and he was encouraged to marry his wife Bertha in Jamaica. There’s a school of thought that she was mixed race, if not Black.

We are in Udaipur at the moment. We were chatting to the hotel owner this morning. He said he recently visited Bath. He made a couple of observations that I thought were thought provoking.
Firstly, he said there were a lot of South Asians exploiting the UK system.
Secondly, he thinks too many young people in the UK feel guilty about the British Empire.
I'd guess he is in his thirties. He is obviously a very privileged Indian as he owns a hotel and has visited the UK. I thought his comments interesting but also wonder how widespread his thoughts are in India generally, especially his second comment.

It was an A level text at one point! I noticed, but one of my ancestors was an Abolitionist. I do think it’s important to remember that slavery was normal for the whole of history across the whole world up until the abolitionists. While there had been no slavery in England since the Norman Conquest, there had been feudalism and people hadn’t thought about the rights and wrongs of slavery. There are even examples of English sailors on slave ships being enslaved in West Africa and not realising slavery was wrong. It required a particular set of historical circumstances and a particularly determined group of people to change opinions on a vast scale in opposition to strong financial interests. It required Christian ideas about being equal before God, English ideas about being equal before the law, Locke’s bill of rights and the witness of enlightened people who saw the brutality of slavery and were willing to risk their reputations to end it. It looks so easy with hindsight. I don’t think it was.

I’ll raise your Belgians with my VOC! For sheer wanton entrepreneurial bastardry, the Dutch had no peer. They instigated a genocide of the Spice Islands just to drive a bull run on cloves in the Amsterdam bourse!

What did he mean about south Asians ‘exploiting the UK system’? Did you ask him to clarify?

I read a lot as a child, and my dad was very wc historian/ vive la revolution, so i knew this growing up.

We definitely learned about slavery in primary school, I remember a trip to Liverpool to the exhibitions and museums.

I'm always more surprised that people manage to get to adulthood without knowing any of this stuff.

Second King Leopolds Ghost - excellent book.

Yes, all empires (which of course have existed throughout the world for 1000s of years) have their nasty sides. Depends on which side of the fence you’re sitting.

This surely isn’t news.

Will other empires be covered in this series? Or is it a BBC series?

Interesting comments and views. Yes slavery has always existed. Taj Mahal….seen as so beautiful … so much slavery blood. No at school I didn’t do o level history, only spent time on Tudors and told all about the catholic missionary to spread the gospel

This is why I find people who look up to/want to look like they have "old money" gross. It's so distasteful to be snobbish about it when there's nothing admirable or "classy" (hate that word and its connotations) about inheriting wealth that was made in the ways that "old money" has come about.

I disagree that it wasn't all bad, it pretty much all bad. As someone from a colonised country living with the impact to this day (i.e. Northern Ireland conflict).

We definitely learned about this in primary school in the 90s, I am always surprised that people are surprised. I think the NT near me does a great job of acknowledging it.

Sadly humans on the whole can be a bit shitty to each other, realistically anyone/group that has great wealth has generated that off the misery of others. It's not specific to any country or people, I suppose it's how we have had our incredible success compared to other animals.

What i think this show could have done is explicitly connected it to modern day slavery. Temu/shein/metal mines, I do think people struggle to make that connection from slavery of the past (seen as bad - obvs!) To slavery of today and how we might be able to not endorse it in our own little way. It can't be done perfectly but i do think it's an important take away.

Overall I really enjoy DS, he is very interesting and engaging and always tune into his programmes.

Also midnight patrol, would you say about tolerance of rape in the last for example, that it was a different time, and also everyone was doing it?

I haven't seen the series but it does sound interesting, I might give it a watch. I grew up in Northern Ireland so I learned a lot about British colonialism in Ireland at school, but pretty much nothing about British colonialism in other regions like India, Nigeria or Hong Kong. I have only learned about these subjects as an adult through podcasts, books and television.

The reason there is an ongoing conflict in NI is because some Northern Irish consider themselves British, and some consider themselves to be part of Ireland.

So - they don’t see the relationship / history with the UK has a bad thing.

And - borders change over time. A map of Europe a hundred years ago looks different to today.

Interesting how we have jumped from ‘the empire wasn’t all bad’ to ‘so you think rape was ok then’.

….!

And why do some think they are British I wonder? What do you think happened there?

His comments are typical of a certain class of Indian who feel that they have more in common with wealthy Westerners than they do their fellow Indians. I have been told by a couple of wealthy Indians that it’s a shame that British rule ended because it kept lower caste Indians in their place whereas now some of them are in professional jobs and even in Parliament. The horror!

In the mid-1970s I was the only Black pupil at my selective independent girls’ school. Across the entire curriculum the existence of Black people in the world was never once referred to - not in literature, or cookery, or religion, or science - until it came to The Slave Trade in History.

History happened to be one of my best subjects and I got on well with the History teacher. To this day I can remember the anxious glances she shot in my direction during those lessons, and the way her hands twisted nervously as she led us through the textbooks …

If everyone thought the UK’s influence was a terrible thing in NI, we wouldn’t see an ongoing conflict as to which country the land was part of.

I believe in self-determination. If people in NI want to be British, who am I to say no you can’t you must be part of the Irish state because you’re on the same land mass.

Scotland, Wales and Ireland involve several hundred years of history. Some of it is bad yes - but I don’t think you can say all of it is.

How anyone has not realised the British Empire was based on exploitation and profit is beyond me, of course it was, all empires are. The Museum of Docklands is really good place to.leanr about tne East India Company and its role in establishing the Empire

I'm not sure you understand the concept of the plantations. You seem to think some Irish people just randomly decided that it was cool to be British.