The constant calls for Britain to apologise for slavery miss one hugely important fact: that Britain was almost single-handedly responsible for abolishing the abhorrent trade, at immense cost to itself. Former Royal Navy officer Lewis Page makes the case in the Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt.
There’s a lot of discussion nowadays about Britain’s history of involvement in slavery. Indeed there was a lot of actual, formal slavery here in Roman times and the Dark Ages, mostly imposed by white people on other white people. That gradually mutated into feudalism and so then into ‘freedom’ for people living in England itself no matter what their skin colour: but nobody is very interested in that.
The slavery that people would rather discuss nowadays is the Atlantic slave trade, in which Britain was most definitely – and by modern standards, shamefully – involved. A vessel involved in this typically made a triangular voyage: outbound from Britain or Europe with a cargo of trade goods to West Africa, where goods and/or money would be used to buy African slaves. The slaves would then be taken on the Middle Passage across the Atlantic and the survivors sold to buyers in the Americas. The ship would then load a cargo for Europe – perhaps sugar or cotton – and so return home, usually having made a handsome profit on all three legs. American ships had their own variations on this theme.
The British (and other European/American traders) did not enslave the Africans: that was done by other Africans. African kings would typically sell off prisoners they had taken in wars or purposeful slave-taking raids against other nations. If people today would like to rename something or pull down some statues, they might consider renaming ‘Camp Gezo’, the military base in modern-day Benin, or vandalise a statue of King Gezo, ruler of Dahomey from 1818 to 1859. Gezo enslaved huge numbers of Africans and built an economy based on selling them to the Atlantic traders. The forced marches in which slaves were moved to the coast by Gezo and other African rulers were often as deadly as the Middle Passage itself. Things could always be worse, however: Dahomey also had a tradition of religious human sacrifice.
By the time Gezo was on the throne of Dahomey the slave trade was still very lucrative, with willing buyers across the Atlantic and many northern nations still willing to carry the trade. But one nation in particular had changed its ideas on slavery: that nation was Britain. British slave traders had been in the triangle trade along with Americans and Europeans for around 250 years. But now, not only did this become illegal for Brits, but the Royal Navy – then the most powerful navy in the world – began making active efforts to suppress the African slave trade altogether.
This was an almost unbelievably surprising and forceful move in the context of the time. A few other nations had declared slavery illegal in places where there was no slavery, it is true. This had long been decided in England by the Somerset v Stewart court case of 1772, following which slave owners stopped bringing slaves onto English territory – it was generally considered that this automatically made them free.
No other nation, however, then went on to say that the very slave trade itself should be outlawed and wiped out, and went still further to back its words with deeds.
If we want some new statues and celebrations to make us proud to be British, let us celebrate the men of the RN West Africa Squadron, aka the Preventive Squadron. They fought the Atlantic slave trade at great cost and hardship throughout the 19th century – largely alone during the early, hard part. Mortality among British sailors on the anti-slavery service was more than five times normal, mainly due to disease but also in combat. From 1808 to to 1860 the RN West African force captured or destroyed 1,600-plus slave ships and freed 150,000 slaves at sea: many more in operations ashore, sometimes hundreds of miles up dangerous rivers in ship’s boats. Something like 1,600 officers and men never came back from operations on the slave coasts in the early decades.
Worth reading in full.
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Apologise? Er, I think all the British people historically involved in slavery back in the day are dead. So who is meant to apologise? How can you apologise on behalf of dead people? What a load of nonsense. What possible meaning can that have?
Let’s be honest, isn’t “apologising for slavery” more like “apologising for the relative success of European civilisation compared to Africa”?
What’s needed more often and more loudly is for someone with a brain to cut through the crap and spell it out for the hard-of-thinking.
Congratulations, keep it up.
I do not apologise.
I have never enslaved anyone.
If I had enslaved someone inadvertently I would probably apologise. As I have not, I won’t.
If I had enslaved someone deliberately then any apology would be hollow.
.
I firmly agree with your full stop.——–Just kidding
At least it is not a pointless comment.
Wish I had thought of that —-funny
You are too kind.
It is the sort of comment that I have to come here to make as Mrs Faffor had a humour bypass at birth.
There is a great deal of nonsense talked regarding the slave trade.
‘….military enslavement was by far the most significant method is important, for it means that rulers were not, for the most part, selling their own subjects but people whom they, at least, regarded as aliens. The fact that many exported slaves were recent captives means that they were drawn from those captured in the course of warfare who had not yet been given an alternative employment within Africa. In these cases, rulers were deciding to forgo the potential future use of these slaves. Some of the exports were slaves whom local masters wished to dispose of for one reason or another and those who had been captured locally by brigands or judicially enslaved.
This is exactly the situation described by da Mosto in his account of Jolof in 1455. After a description of the use of the slaves in the domestic economy, da Mosto noted that most slaves were captured in wars with neighboring countries and the civil wars. Many of these captives were integrated into the domestic economy, but the rest were sold to the “Moors” for horses.’
The Process of Enslavement and the Slave Trade
John K. Thornton
‘Military enslavement’ was as old as the hills. Once the apologies start, we will all have to apologise to each other and to ourselves.
At least Britain abolished the wretched trade……so could we ask the entire world to give us a round of applause, please, while we all give ourselves a big pat on the back…..
Or, alternatively, could the ‘apology’ blighters, whoever they may be, just drop the venality and stop being so silly?
White Slaves were 40% of the Roman empire’s population. A similar amount within the various Greek empires. Celts, Saxons, Teutons, the Vikings were all focused in large part on White slaving.
Then we have the Musulmans. 25 million White Slaves. 50 million Black Slaves. Don’t hear a god damn thing about it. One reason for the Viking invasions of this country was to provide White slaves to the Caliphs in North Africa and the Middle East.
Today right now in Africa some 5 million Blacks are enslaved by Arabs, Muslims and other Blacks. Zero whites involved.
This year and every year some 5000 Black Christian Nigerians will be killed by Black Muslims and if female, likely raped beforehand. Hundreds, probably thousands are sex enslaved by Black Muslims every single year, some are young school girls. But they are Black Christians so who gives a shyte – no one, not even the useless Churches.
I also hear there are no black people running around in Arab countries because the Arabs castrated their slaves. ——-Forgotten slavery: The Arab-Muslim slave trade | FairPlanet
No one today should apologise for the actions of anyone who was alive 100, 200, 300 years ago etc. Otherwise the Germans would never be done apologising. But how many people today blame Germans for what Germans did in the last 2 wars? It is well understood that those Germans back then were to blame for their actions and this has nothing to do with Germans alive today. —–Should Joachim von Heisenberg working as a butcher in Mannheim have anything to apologise for because his grandfather was in the SD or SS? ——Ah but the butcher in Mannheim is not the government I hear people say. —–But todays governments were elected by people alive today not by dead people who might have committed atrocities in the past and those current politicians cannot be held responsible for the actions of previous generations of politicians. ——-This “apologising” nonsense is like many other things in todays world political. Political agenda’s are behind all of the apologising, just as the wealthy western world is now apologising for having “appropriated” the earths atmosphere by it’s use of fossil fuels and must now pay the price for that by fobbing its citizens off with inferior energy solutions at great expense by way of “Apology”.
Indeed but as I said above it’s nothing to do with actions hundreds of years ago. It’s about the “success gap” now.
And the Arab persecution and enslavement of black Africans is still happening to this day, but because whites or Jews aren’t the so-called ”oppressors” in these examples, the West turns a hypocritical blind eye. Once more the Muslims seemingly have protected status, because ‘Islamophobia’. The Western ‘powers that be’ prefer to talk about and scapegoat the phantom menace that is the ‘far-right extremists’ but a quick look at any crime figures on terrorism easily contradicts their hollow assertions;
”Since Arabs first invaded Africa in the seventh century, murderous raids targeting innocent civilians have been a common feature of the spread of Islam in Africa. Today, in Mauritania, Black Mauritanians whose ancestors were taken into captivity centuries ago and whose status as chattel has been passed down through the generations, live in bondage, serving as slaves to their Arab Berber masters. Even though indigenous Africans in Mauritania were converted to Islam after the Arab conquest, race has trumped religion, and the Arab Berber rulers have treated the Black Mauritanians as they would infidels.
Modern-day Mauritania is essentially a racist caste system ruled by the 30% Arab Berber minority, called beydanes (“whites”). The Arab-controlled government has “banned” slavery five times since independence from France—in 1961, 1980, 1981, 2007, and 2015—yet today, absurdly, denies that it exists. According to the Global Slavery Index, approximately 149,000 Black Mauritanians still live there as slaves. These slaves remain in chains. They’re bred and are known to have been horrifically tortured in ways that rival and may even surpass Hamas’ torments. Yet these Black Muslim slaves who are passed down like the family furniture from the masters to their sons have no serious champions in the West.
Why are these horrors of real-world slavery, with women raped and men kept in chains, based on the color of their skin or their religion, not better understood and publicized in the West? Because the reigning progressive ideology taught in almost all American educational institutions divides the world into “oppressors” and “oppressed,” bestowing on the latter protected status. With the Arab and Muslim communities in America having been granted this new form of immunity, casting light on evil conduct committed by Arab colonial conquerers who enslave and murder Black Africans, is simply not allowed.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/arab-enslavement-black-africans
Great ——Cheers.
Excellent history article by former Royal Navy Officer Lewis Page.
Ethnic Europeans must strongly reject all attempts to impose a false “White Guilt” upon our whole ethnic group. There is no such thing as communal guilt, or ancestral guilt, or national guilt, or racial guilt.
These false concepts have been forced upon the German people, the Japanese people, the Spanish people, the English people (Welsh, Scots & Irish deemed to be ancestral victims of the English), the American people, Australian people, and all Ethnic Europeans around the world. It’s time to say “No!”, and teach our children to say “No! We are proud of our race, our history, and the western civilisation our ancestors worked so hard to build. And we will not apologise for any of it.”
Britain was not a slaving society in the era in question. It was not a Government policy. Slaves were not used in Britain. That some individuals and private companies – like the East India Company – were involved in slavery, does not mean Britain as a social, or political entity was involved.
The trans-Atlantic slave trade was started by Spain, mostly, but Portugal too. African slave taking was Government sanctioned and African slaves were initially brought to work in Spain.
Spain and Portugal shipped more than six times the number of slaves to their South American colonies, than were shipped to the British Colonies/USA in North America and West Indies. Oddly, neither are in the frame for reparations or opprobrium.
But the real significant point is, those slaves were bought – not captured – by European traders, at first from Arab traders but later from the Chiefs and Kings of powerful African tribes that had traded slaves for more than 1 000 years prior to Europeans setting foot in Africa.
Those idiots who want reparation need to go to the head of the supply chain, in Africa… or better still, just get lost.