It isnt happening now. When the American Civil War interrupted the supply of cotton, hundreds of thousands of British workers were made destitute, dependent on soup kitchens, and the British economy was dealt a thunderous blow, all because an ocean away the forced labour of four million enslaved black Americans had been disrupted. They are pretty much airbrushed from history, whereas the transatlantic slave trade seems to be wall-to-wall on our TV screens and in our school textbooks. Long after he had published Corydon, his defence of pederasty. They all get it from White people inciting violence. I still find arguing the toss, or watching others doing so, interesting partly because it shows how the viewpoints are divergent, how many arguments are self-interested, what social, cultural and economic forces are at work behind it all. (As the first person to mention the Sokoto Caliphate ahh, forget it.). His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, details how he was sold into slavery aged 11, his experience of travelling the world as slave to a Royal Navy officer - who renamed him Gustavus Vassa - and how he bought his freedom from his final master, an English merchant in Montserrat. I assume these were usually killed before Europeans turned up and bought them. Or they may discover how little black lives do matter. We do not know how great the demand for women was. Whoever has the upper-hand in power political, cultural, economic, military or whatever other form is decisive at that moment. Black and British: A Forgotten History addresses one of the greatest silences in British historiography. I can then give him the details of other descendants, he can apologise to and compensate. The rest of this looks like the usual white washing (so to speak) of African slavery. Those who grew rich on slavery and the slave trade were not neutral and no achievement or act of philanthropy justifies airbrushing their involvement from history. It was the first of the slave narratives that I'd ever read and I found it astonishing.". What is their strongest argument? Id say the same to the Black Lives Matter people. And any reparations should be paid 50% by the African states for the areas which sold the slaves and pocketed the proceeds. It was an apt university to experiment with such developments, since Lord Scarman, who reported on the Brixton riots of 1981, was its chancellor. "I first read it as a student and it struck me as something that was very different to other things I was reading about the Atlantic slave trade. Check out the trailer for Peter Pan & Wendy, an upcoming live-action movie directed by David Lowery. What would happen to that money, who knows, but as its (or was) your money, thats between you and your grifter of choice. If you think 14 is the wrong decision for the boundary, a better argument is a rebuttal of the strongest case for 14 rather than a rebuttal of a straw-man version of it. Maybe Europeans did increase demand. Arguably wrong in a crimes against humanity way (similar language of natural justice and universal morality indeed being used by the abolitionists and the UK itself when it tried to enforce a ban on the trade) that made it inherently illegal even when governments tried to put it on a legal footing. One of the reasons why the American and Caribbean experiences were very different. As for the future, the University of Manchester professor says younger generations give him hope. Your email address will not be published. It can be withdrawn. As it happens, I dont believe in sins of the fathers passing down the generations. Their demands should simply be refused. Although the bottom line is that no Black person remembers slavery. But any planter who deliberately starved his slaves to death would quickly go bust. However, it applies to at least 80% of Americans. Oblong, His rhetoric is to inflame the reader. I suspect that whether records could prove it or not, its overwhelmingly likely to be true, especially since high-status individuals tend to make a bigger contribution to the gene pool. Thats fine, BraveFart. Was never entirely sure which bits were believed and which bits were just a fun bit of intellectual muscle-flexing couldnt all have been intended seriously since so many posts contradicted each other. But those were in those long-lost days when democrats and republicans could talk to each other and agree to disagree while both leaving the conversation a little the wiser.. His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. But slaves were more valuable, so the British fought the Spanish for a share in the trade and eventually came to dominate it. Now they do. David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. And so many hundreds of thousands of British workers were directly dependent on slavery (from sailors to those who built, rigged and repaired ships) that it was easy to turn a blind eye to the inhumanity. The evidence of this is that seasoned slaves, those exposed to the environment, sold for up to 50% more than new ones. BZZZTT!! Guess wed have to print it. Like I need to hand my cash to the next lass of Rus descent I see, lest she remind me of some unlucky slave-girl that may or may not have perished at the hands of my maybe-ancestors? Tull played professional football for Northampton but instead of signing up for Glasgow Rangers, he enlisted. This ignorant fellow should study historical facts, rather than believing and repeating lies and half-truths. Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. Hey, we do not even have to go that far. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. Giles Terera, the Olivier award-winning British performer who starred in the popular theatre production Hamilton, has . Its a shame 5 quotes from David Olusoga: 'On a peninsula protruding into one of the great highways of the Atlantic slave trade, a few hundred refugees from British slavery in North America were attempting to recreate the social structures of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.', 'Time and again events and phenomena that we think we know and understand contain within them lost or camouflaged connections to . Peter completed his award-winning PhD, exploring stress and coping in elite sports coaching, at Sheffield Hallam in 2012. A newsletter showcasing the finest writing from the ideas section, covering political ideas, philosophy, criticism and intellectual history - sent every Wednesday. I brought up paedophilia to demonstrate that there are things not worth my time. But that ignores how the demand of outsiders led inevitably to far more supply being provided. Youre right, MBE. My family did nothing. In 1787, they met in London and set up the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The stars are out as Dr Pete Olusoga explores the psychology of stage and screen with the wonderful British actor (and Coronation Street veteran), Shobna Gulati. They are stupid false for America. Rapidly promoted to sergeant, then second lieutenant, he led white British troops into action and died in 1918, having been mentioned in despatches and recommended for the Military Cross. Jamaicans and Nigerians used to hate each other. Africans had a demand for female slaves. Although I would expect the Germans, and perhaps even the Japanese, to be happy they lost the war. This is indeed tu quoque. It's possibly a deeper change than some people realise because I don't think what we're living through is a series of political events; I think we're living through a generational shift," he says. Nevertheless, we live in a society that generally regards slavery as an absolute and eternal wrong, and a grave one at that, yet which has historically (at least certain people and places, and including the state itself) benefited from imposing slavery on others.. 2023 BBC. Not to say it was nice.. In the case of slavery the answer is clear. The argument isnt whether historical slavery was right or wrong or who should accept responsibility for it. He writes to inflame white guilt, so that you will ACCEPT destruction of your culture. Exactly, bis. It could not have happened at all unless African traders and kings had offered slaves to the Europeans. Maybe heard of Saint Balthild, seventh-century English lass sold into slavery, exported to the Continent, served in a palace and ended up marrying the Frankish King?). Watching @worstall execute @richardjmurphy is like watching a very, very clever cat slowly killing at ataxic mouse. Quite possibly slave-raiding Gaels before that. This is a moral argument. When I met her, ~1995, I started asking her questions about the war, as I thought she was a fabulous resource of information. You can pay all the reparation for historical slavery related wrongs, real or imaginary, you want. Used to be on a long-dead and much missed forum where the topics of debate ranged far wider than they do here (as did the viewpoints I think it would be useful if us right-wing brexity mob didnt chase off the sensible non-right-wing non-brexity types so much). The people in Portland, Seattle and Kenosha are too decadent to fight back. We could just cut to the chase, and impose a reparations tax on anyone who is descended from from anyone who did something, er, wrong. By this logic, we ought to sue the African American community. Then a young teenager, he was driven out of his council home, together with his grandmother, mother, two sisters and younger brother, by a sustained campaign of nightly stoning of their windows. The thing we British are ancestrally responsible for is beginning and continuing to pursue the extinction of the sordid business of slavery. History is just one awful thing after another. But as someone who is damaged by slavery I have lived in racially mixed communities and I am happy to see Obama and Kamala pay up. It costs money to replace them and after a famine the price of slaves would rise. But Ill tell you what, slavery and human sacrifice, still awful. Thats what I dont like about the angle of Tims header. Even Bill Clinton had affinity for the USA. Black and British: A Forgotten History They are now CM scum and couldnt care less about America. David then moved with his mother and three siblings in the north-east of the UK. It began to alter (slightly) the history curriculum at university level: the first undergraduate one-year course on black British history and culture was taught at the University of Warwick in 1984. Re putting the argument for paedophilia they actually gave Gide the Nobel prize for literature didnt they? It happened. David Olusoga is a 49-year-old historian and presenter Credit: Getty - Contributor David Olusoga is a British Nigerian historian, broadcaster and writer. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. It isnt going to happen anyway. Within the EU the two most common ages of consent are 14 and 15 (if Ive done my counting correctly), though in some but not all cases thats with additional restrictions on permissible age gaps. It was, I believe, the first book I ever bought for myself with my own money. Both groups today, especially the former, could reasonably claim historic persecution has reduced their present income and wealth. Sloane witnessed and later became part of a system ruled by terror. Even discussing it gives your opponents arguments merit. Its an interesting exercise to consider, given we live within such a system, how or whether that contradiction can be settled. No doubt life expectancy of a slave was shorter than that for a free man. No. Would also apply even if down a different family line there had been beneficiaries of the slave trade. Its entirely possible to think something was awful without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt or personal responsibility. The novel became the bestselling book of 19th-century Britain; it was adapted for the theatre and generated mass-produced merchandise playing cards, jigsaws, tableware. It is about the centuries-long engagement with Africa, a consequence of which is the black presence in Britain. Then, in October, came a breakthrough. Not a big fan of the odd human sacrifice Im afraid, even though I might just be of very partial Scandinavian descent myself. A renowned economist has said that $12 trillion should be afforded to black Americans in reparation for slavery to help the close wealth gap.. She wasnt interested in my academic pursuit. The Coldest Case in Laramie: yet another bleak true crime podcast, From Sophie Mackintosh to Stephen Moss: new books reviewed in short, Universal Credit falls short of covering the bare essentials. Should black history be taught all year round? It was such a brilliantly organised programme of mass protest that slavery was declared abolished in 1833: 46,000 slave owners were given 20m in compensation (17bn in todays money), the largest payout in British history and 40 per cent of all government spending that year. 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