In 1849, a British sea captain called Frederick Forbes arrived in the West African kingdom of Dahomey. He had been sent by the British Government to persuade King Ghezo to cease selling his fellow Africans whom he had captured in war to European slave traders. The British had banned slave trading in their empire in 1807 and were using their naval might to intercept slave ships bound for the Americas. Their approach to African nations engaged in the trade was initially diplomatic in order to avoid war. Conflict with Dahomey over its human trafficking would have been especially costly as it was the region’s great power. So highly militarised was it that the Europeans who had visited nicknamed it “Black Sparta”. As for Forbes, he was not optimistic about his mission’s success.
According to his published autobiography, Six Months’ Service in the African Blockade, even if an African monarch were persuaded that slave trading was immoral, he could not be induced to abandon the lucrative trade because his subjects who benefited from it would have conspired with the Europeans who bought the slaves to assassinate him. It was for that reason that Forbes knew all previous attempts to persuade Ghezo had come to nothing. The King had cordially received every embassy from the British, put on for each occasion a welcoming yet menacing display of his wealth and military power, and then immovably refused to give up the trade. Nevertheless, Forbes pressed on with his grim mission. What else could he do: he was under his Government’s orders. The display of recently decapitated human heads still oozing with blood as he passed through Ghezo’s palace courtyard must have seemed to him failure’s gruesome portends.
During his audience with Ghezo, Forbes endeavoured to persuade him with what was becoming the stock argument against the slave trade when in dialogue with African kings: that if slaves were not sold but employed to cultivate wild land, the nation would become great and rich. To bolster his case, Forbes presented Ghezo with a letter from Queen Victoria in which she expressed her opposition to the slave trade alongside gifts of silks and cloths. But the King was in no mood to listen. As he pointed out to Forbes, had the British not been the most prolific participants, “the first of white men”, as he put it, in the trade?
Though Forbes did not convert Ghezo to abolitionism, he did not leave empty-handedly. As if to underscore his commitment to the slave trade, among the gifts Ghezo gave Forbes to give to Victoria was a slave girl. Diplomatically, Forbes accepted the child and on his return to London, presented her to the Queen. As it was Forbes who had brought her to Britain on HMS Bonetta, the girl was named Sarah Forbes Bonetta (her African name is unknown). She remained a favourite of the Queen and later married the British African James Pinson Labulo Davies who had made his fortune in the palm oil business.
As for Ghezo, he was coerced into signing in January 1852 a treaty with Britain renouncing the slave trade after the British had resorted to blockading his ports. Persuasion had failed, but might prevailed. Ghezo was assassinated in 1864 by a sniper from an enemy state, Abeokuta. With the expansion of the very profitable palm oil business as an alternative, slave trading declined and eventually died out when Dahomey was conquered by the French Empire. In 1960, Dahomey gained its independence and is known today as Benin.
The moral of this story may already be transparent to you. There are those who claim that the U.K. owes enormous reparations for its involvement in the slave trade, but who never acknowledge African complicity in the trafficking. If reparations are owed, and I have argued that they are not, why are the people of Benin not being pressured into paying compensation? Of course they should not be, just as Britain should not be – but this double standard is a consequence of the abominable untruth that white people are uniquely violent and evil, and that slave trading is a manifestation of this inherent turpitude. Yet, objective historians and anthropologists will confirm that slave selling and owning was a ubiquitous human phenomenon. It remains the case today according to the UN, and tragically continues in Africa.
Therefore, let us say to those clamouring for Britain to make restitution for its slave trading past but who omit from their charge-sheet African guilt, and any other civilisation’s guilt, for the same thing; who regard Britain as inherently, incurably and idiosyncratically racist, and who view black people only as victims: consider King Ghezo, his people and all the other African monarchs and people who owned and traded slaves. Yes, look on their depraved deeds and despair, for they demonstrate that your use of history is biased, your anthropology is bankrupt and your demands are baseless.
Peter Harris is the author of two books, The Rage Against the Light: Why Christopher Hitchens Was Wrong (2019) and Do You Believe It? A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith (2020). First published on the New Conservative.
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Well yes, but I think the involvement of white European nations in slavery is just a convenient way to attack us*. The real issue is the ongoing gulf in material prosperity, political stability and personal safety that exists between different nations, races, cultures and civilisations, and the fact the Africa as a continent lags behind on most measures with no sign of the gap being closed – which doesn’t of course mean they are not getting more prosperous. As long as that gulf exists, white Europe will be under attack from without and within, and that gulf will exist for as long as white Europe exists. I’d say the only way that the gap will be closed is for white Europe to cease to exist – which is exactly what is happening, slowly. But then I am undoubtedly a horrible racist.
*In case there is anyone hard of understanding, this doesn’t mean I “approve of slavery”.
I think you’re missing an important point: These reparation claims are not made by Africans, they come from our fellow first worlders, many of them white, in the USA who have an endless appetite for tribute payments from Europe or, somewhat more bluntly put, want to rob us based on endless nagging and covert and not-so-cover threats, just like the professional addict-beggars do over here in the streets: I want money. You have money. Therefore, I want you to give me money, justifications for this to be made up on the go.
I also still think that it’s highly suspicious that this is called reparations. The conventional meaning of the term is tribute payments the party which has lost a war has to make to the party which won it. Germany finally paid of the first world war reparation demanded from it in 2010¹ and shortly afterwards, Americans now deprived of regular German payments began to make noises that they also want ‘reparations’ for everyone else for anything else, just more money which falls from the sky because we sure deserve it.
¹ In a striking contrast to this, the reparations France had to pay for the Franco-German war of 1870/71 were paid off ahead of schedule in 1873, ie, two years after hostilities had ceased instead of 91 years.
I think there are various forces at work here, some in collusion, some not, some useful idiots, and indeed some are our fellow citizens.
The forces which are at work here originate from the so-called American left and not from Africa.
Great article. David Livingstone anyone? One reason for his Christian mission was to end the enslavment of Blacks by other Blacks and Muslims in Central and East Africa. He partially succeeded and made it world wide knowledge what was transpiring with Blacks and Muslims owning Black slaves.
There are still 5-10 million Black slaves in Africa today – owned by Blacks and Muslims. Bend those knees. Pay those reparations.
Darfur? Muslim Jihadi’s attacking and enslaving Black Christians and animists, this is why South Sudan was formed. Sex and labour enslavement was rampant.
Nigeria south of the Muslim Jihad horde in the North, is a Christian land – Catholic and more predominantly Anglican. Why is that? The Anglicans and Catholics destroyed the Black slave markets -operated and ran by Blacks- and put up churches and schools. They were liberators.
Today, weekly, monthly, Nigerian Musulman Jihadis attack, rape, kill and burn down churches – often with priests and laity inside. The sex enslavement of Black Christian women is legion – but of course this is the fault of colonial racism and ‘climate change’. No need to bend knees.
Yeah let’s discuss slavery chuds. Anytime including White slaves.
‘The Rage Against the Light. Why Christopher Hitchens Was Wrong.’ Having read virtually all his books and listened to very many combative encounters, were the great man still with us, (died 2011), my money would be on him in any debate concerning the numinous.
“As he pointed out to Forbes, had the British not been the most prolific participants, “the first of white men”, as he put it, in the trade?”
Wasn’t that the Spanish and Portuguese who first used African sieves in their own Countries then in their colonies in South America?
Or do Spanish and Portuguese not qualify as white men? (It woz the Sun wot dunnit.)
So really, ending slavery could be seen as the apotheosis of colonialism.
Shocking, and we should all of course be ashamed.
And hand over wads of cash.
Can we expect calls from the CoE for reparations to African states for destroying their lucrative slave trade?
Nothing coming from that bunch of deluded dimwits would surprise me.
They cannot even protect their churches in this country from being turned into mosques with the subsequent desecration of graves that should have been protected from that indignity. Every church-mosque conversion is an insult to US and a victory for izlam.
The treacherous idiots who rule and ruin our country should have passed a law preventing this eventuality decades ago, but they’re a cowardly bunch with no talent for forethought whatsoever.
I remember in my area a church named for St Aidan being bought and converted into a mosque in the mid-1980s and I’m sure it was happening elsewhere well before that. If that wasn’t a warning sign that should have been heeded long ago, what the hell was?
Burning Rushdie’s books and putting a fatwa on him? Nah, not even that did the trick.
7/7/05? Nope. Many jihadi explosions and murders since. Nothing wakes up the complacent ruling elite to the imminent danger we are all in of being ruled by izlamic terrorists.
Of course, the wealthy elite will have already made plans to get out of the UK to a safer place when their neglect results in the conquest of the people they’ve betrayed.
Who’s got money which could be transferred? Western Europeans, particularly those who have been conditioned over a generation or more into believing that their ancestors were evil.
Who hasn’t got money which could be transferred? Black Africans.
So of course slavery is all the fault of Western Europeans, particularly those who have been conditioned over a generation or more into believing that their ancestors were evil ….so of course they must be made to pay ……. (for the “crime” of being wealthier).
So tired of living in clown world, where the truth is suppressed, history re-written and ‘activists’ peddle nonsense to the simple-minded.
Excellent article by Peter Harris.
When are we going to start talking about White Slavery, which has been going on since at least Roman times, when Hebrew Slavetraders followed the Roman armies into Gaul and northern Europe, offering the troops ready cash for “war captives”, especially those with yellow or red hair, to be dragged back to Rome, where their long hair was shaved off to make wigs for wealthy, dark-haired Romans? Children were preferred, as easier to transport and cheaper to feed on the way…