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. 🥹

When did I say I thought you were exploiting the British system? I said that I thought I knew what he was talking about. I did not say I agreed with him.
He may have been discussing the state of the UK with some DM readers for all I know.

I love his voice and his delivery. I'm delighted that there's going to be another series of A House Through Time looking at a house in Edinburgh. Can't wait!

that's great

Watching this now. Am fascinated and so pleased to see it’s talking about not only indentured workers but also Guyana. One of my ancestors was an indentured servant on a plantation in Lichfield, Guyana. When I read his “job title” when researching my family tree I’d never heard of indentured labour and read up about it at the time. I still struggle to get my head round what my ethnic origin from this sort of my family would be, South American, Indian? I know people say Indo-American but people don’t understand this and think you’re claiming to be a Native American.

You would know his origin from his name, surely? Indentured labourers mostly came from India and a few ftom China and if you could track down the record of his indenture it would say. Its very interesting. The history of indenture really has been ignored far more than slavery.

@OnlyOnAFriday sorry, did I misunderstand? Did you mean cultural origin rather than ethnic? I thought most Indo-Guyanese consider themselves culturally part of the Caribbean rather than South American.

Does anyone get irritated when TV presenters talk about historic events in the present tense? DO does this all the time.

"He buys a house in Newcastle". No he didn't he bought the house.

Yes, I’d need to do more research, sorry it’s all quite confusing and I don’t know enough. I know the name of one side of the family but not the other if that makes sense. So one of my ancestors was white, English and went to Guyana as an indentured servant (which I’d no idea happened), but had a relationship with another indentured servant over there and seems she was from India. But i don’t know her name. At some point some of their descendants came to the U.K.

I really don’t know a lot as there’s no direct family knowledge as I found out via a dna test that my grandfather wasn’t my grandfather. I have a name for my biological grandfather and have researched his family tree, spoken to some distant relatives I’ve met online.

Regrettable!!!!

it was other Europeans but we undoubtedly had the biggest empire

But those empires were 2000 years ago and did not treat the slaves as the black Africans were treated by the British

also villeins etc weren’t owned in the same way as the black Africans - they were still regarded as human

This!

thank you!

Not to mention the Belgians. Their crimes against humanity were unbelievably horrific in Africa.

If you’re going to argue that slavery under the British was worse than all other civilisations that had it before I don’t understand why you’d spend a lot of that argument on how unfair the process of ending it was, considering slavery never ended in those other civilisations.

Very much this.

Also, would you give up everything potentially if you could undo the Empire?
You can bet the average person in the UK would be in a very different position today if the country had never gained from the empire.

Their crimes do not diminish the crimes of the British.

And those slave owners thought they were “banging Christianity into the women they were repeatedly raping”

pp re Christianity and Christian ways being the leading light in abolition!

That’s why it’s still relevant and reparation is needed

we are beneficiaries big time of this

I didn't study history at school. I've read the Jeremy Paxman book and found it interesting and readable.
(I've also read Roots by Alex Haley and Conrad's Heart of Darkness, so no way an expert, but not completely unaware. I know enough to know I don't know much).

Do you think the working class in this country who were also suffering should pay reparations? Should the descendants of slave owners and dealers in Africa benefit ftom reparations? Some of them did very well out of the slave trade.

So interrsting. I know there are lots of resources now to help you find out. I hope you find out more!

These are side issues distracting from what we are talking about

You brought up reparations!

I think it’s important to avoid comments like this. We aren’t saying if it was good or bad, we are saying/acknowledging that it happened. For many years this hasn’t been fully acknowledged and there is power in recognising the facts of history, slavery, exploitation and empire. By stating the facts of what happened we can more forwards, if we get caught up in attempting to justify/vilify we avoid the original conversation entirely.

I meant you bringing up other groups of exploited/exploiters

But they were part of a completely interlinked system. How extraordinary to only care about one group of exploiters and exploited. I thought this thread was about the understanding of empire?