As he says, I wonder if they will actually tell kids that
the nineteenth-century costs of suppression were bigger than the eighteenth-century profits
or that
it was costing financial capital – Britain did indeed pay heavily in ‘subsidies’ to other European countries to induce them to give up or at least curtail their trade in slaves; somewhat less to numerous chiefs on the African coast for the same purpose; vast sums to its own slave-owners in the West Indies to purchase the freedom of their slaves in 1833; more again to meet the costs of maintaining a squadron on the coast of Africa. It has been estimated that great as was the wealth generated by the slave trade in the half century before 1807, the costs of suppressing it added up to a similar sum:¹ “.. by any more reasonable assessment of profits and direct costs, the nineteenth-century costs of suppression were certainly bigger than the eighteenth-century benefits.” Above all, the campaign was costing the lives of British seamen: a sacrifice that might be worth making to put an end to the slave trade, but a sacrifice wasted if the only result was further suffering for many of the trade’s victims.
So ... Britain already paid hugely over the odds in both money and lives to end a trade that was common practice in the world for milennia before (and probably still goes on today to a much lesser degree in dark shadows.) Will our educators be trumpeting the great moral victory that our ancestors achieved? Will there be respect for the thousands of British seamen who died for the slaves? Will there be accolades for the vast sums of money paid to people from other countries to stop them slaving?
Or do you think that professional victims will be given a new base upon which to build a client base of further victims? Will this be a way of encouraging professional victims like Derrick Campbell to milk more "community cohesion funding" from us? Will there be Counselling Centres built in Sandwell for victims of slavery?
Shall we flip a coin, or do you want to hazard a guess?
2 comments:
Funny how this is going to be made compulsory.
But Stalinist Russia and the dangers of collectivist thought isn't.
From yer old mate Derrick Campbell.
"The African Caribbean contribution, to Britain and Sandwell, did not begin with the Second World War.
(Dr Derrick Campbell, the Director of Race Equality Sandwell).
Slavery and the slave trade cemented the relations between Africa, Europe and the Americas into one of inequality. The industrial revolution in England lies at the heart of this change, and places like West Bromwich and Smethwick were an important part of it. Profit made from the enslavement of millions of Africans fuelled the rise of the iron industry, canals and estates like Warley Woods. The fight by black people and other abolitionists against slavery created an important legacy of opposition to racism and inequality.
This from a leaflet called "Guns Shackles and Chains" The Sandwell Slave Connection.
http://tinyurl.com/5672m4
Commend to you the book 'White Cargo' by Don jordan and Michael Walsh. It is a journalistic account (that means easy to read but not as thickly referenced as some academic history books) of the transportees to the US who were sent as indentured labour alongside slaves.
One snippet emerged that Judge Jeffreys realized the Mayor of Bristol was appropriating children whom he happened to have in prison for minor offences, and selling them on rather than releasing them (page 131). Jeffries made it his personal business to put a stop to this. Alas, the kidnapping trade was rife; it was not only Africans who found themselves bundled away.
I was able to speak to Jordan and Walsh at a book signing. They had difficulty finding a publisher because although the material was good and everyone agreed there was a decent book with verifed history, there was reluctance to go for it. On the one hand it wasn't easy to see how it would fit in to a publisher's portfolio, on the other hand to suggest there was a trade in white slaves as well as black ones might be difficult. In the end, Mainstream Publishing went for it.
Available from Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/38ubl3
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