Many thanks to Vaughan Cockerham one of my subscribers for submitting to me this fantastic article.
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All civilisations used slaves. The Vikings, Africans, Chinese, North Americans, South Americans, Europeans. Everyone. Can you think of a country that did not have slaves ? No. There isn’t one.
And of course, the Romans…..it is estimated that 2000 years ago, 33% of their population was made up of slaves. (As a result, 95% of Romans were poor because all the jobs were done by slaves.)
It is proportionally equivalent to over 20 million slaves in Britain today.
Before we banned slavery, the Portuguese slavers had traded 5.8 million Africans, and British slavers had traded 3.1 million, 6% of the world slave trade. (I don´t know who counted them, either.)
Meanwhile, the Muslims took an incredible 17 million slaves from Africa.
Over 50% died during the forced march across the desert. Some say over 80%.
Millions of African children were bought. The boys were castrated (penis and testicles), obviously without anaesthetic. This was done in order to prevent the ‘pollution’ of the arab gene pool and explains why there are so few negro residents in arab countries today. The castrated slaves could then work in harems looking after women, who were themselves sex slaves.
Can you imagine the screams and the terror as 8 year old boys waited in a queue to be tortured ? 60% died in agony.
We abolished the transatlantic slave trade in 1807. This was despite our being rather busy fighting for our own survival, with the French megalomaniac dictator, Napoleon.
The Royal Navy blockaded Africa and by 1850 there were 25 RN ships whose crewmen held an evangelical dream to defeat the slavers. A RN ship might lose 1 sailor a week to sickness, accident, or action, but there were plenty of volunteers, and some 150,000 slaves were freed.
Of course, the RN could not open fire and risk killing the people they were fighting to save, but they had to take incoming canon fire from the slavers. Some 1,500 British sailors were killed.
Freed slaves did not know geographically where their homes were, so they were all taken to a place we named ‘Freetown’ for obvious reasons.
Alfred Tennyson referred to this blockade.
“This spirit of chivalry … we see it in acts of heroism by land and sea, in fights against the slave trade”.
There were many more Brits fighting the slavers, than there were British slavers.
No other country wanted to ban slavery, although North America banned slavery in 1865 after their war in which some 750,000 died..
(That is about double the number of British deaths during World War 2.)
Saudi Arabia and Yemen begrudgingly removed slavery from their statute books in 1962, and Mauritania in 1980. This does not mean that slavery no longer exists in those countries.
As we know from the football World Cup in 2022, there is still slavery in Qatar.
Even today in the UAE, which is probably the most civilised muslim country, poor workers from India and the Philippines have to surrender their passports to their employer, who might refuse to give it back. The worker cannot get another job, nor leave the country, so they continue to work as slaves, or starve.
Until CraigsList banned the practice just a few years ago, there was a thriving market in such passports. No doubt there is an alternative advertising medium being used now.
It is interesting to see how many documentaries are on YouTube, if you search for ‘Slavery Dubai’
With the Netherlands, Britain attacked Algiers in 1816 to release 3,000 slaves, many of whom were Christians. Some 900 British soldiers and sailors were killed or wounded.
We were actively fighting to stop slavery. The Africans were most definitely not.
It is recorded that in 1634 there were 25,000 Christian slaves in the Algiers slave market.
Doctor Livingstone estimated that every year, 50,000 slaves were sold in the markets of Zanzibar.
We all know of the navy press gangs, that was the enslavement of our own, British people.
I want reparations for my enslaved ancestors. And who would pay my reparations ? You and I would in our tax. We just have to live with the knowledge that my ancestors and yours, endured many atrocities. All our lives today are the result of a history of suffering.
I am sorry that ancestors of Africans suffered, but so did yours and mine.
But Britain was not involved in slavery. As a percentage of the British population, almost no one was involved in the slave trade. Just as today, Britain is not involved in drug trafficking, but a very small number of British people are. So how can anyone possibly expect our country to give billions of tax payers’ money as reparations for the actions of a very small number of criminals hundreds of years ago ? And why Britain and not muslim countries for example ?
In 100 years time, we might be asked to pay reparations for the horrors caused by today’s drug dealers. It is exactly the same logic.
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted as saying “People tear at wounds long since closed, then cry about the pain they feel”. That sums up today’s situation rather well.
Mohamed Ali after ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’ fight in Zaire said, “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat !”. I am sure most African Americans think the same but are not likely to admit it. I don´t believe there is a stream of African Americans who want to return to Africa, so things have worked out rather well for them.
You have no doubt heard of the ‘white slave trade’. There are royal documents from 1625 referring to many British fishing boats and ships being captured, their crews enslaved, and populations of coastal villages taken. (466 British ships between 1609 and 1616.)
The slavers were Barbary pirates (from North Africa) who in the 16th to the 19th centuries took some 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. White women slaves fetched a very high price.
Cervantes was captured by Ottoman slavers and held as a slave until he was bought back by his family.
There are many myths about slavers. They did not sail to Africa, anchor their ship, then march overland, find a village and capture everyone. That would be logistically impossible.
They would never leave their ship almost defenseless with only a skeleton crew. And how long might the capture party trek overland until they found a village ? 5 days ? 5 weeks ? Then set off again on another expedition until the ship was full.
The concept is totally impractical. They might run into a Zulu army !
Slavers simply bought African slaves from Africans slavers in African markets.
These markets were already very well established long before the first European bought a slave.
One African chief marched his subjects to the slave market. Sold them all and spent the rest of his life in debauchery on the proceeds.
Africans King Benin, King Tegbesu, and King Gezo, made incredible fortunes by enslaving African people. The latter said he would obey any British requests, except the ending of slavery. But we forced him to.
The king of Benin made £250,000 a year from slavery, that is equivalent to over £55M a year in today’s money.
King Gezo said “the slave trade is the ruling principle of my people”.
Efunroye Tinubu who died in 1887, was a fantastically wealthy slave trader in Nigeria. She owned 360 slaves to serve in her palace. Tinubu Square is in Lagos, Nigeria. (It is on Broad Street. and a photo of her statue is at the end of this doc. you can also see it in Google Street View Maps.) Neither her tomb, the square nor her statue have been attacked nor damaged, indeed her ancestor was the state governor when the statue was erected.
But sadly, slavery now exists in greater numbers than ever.
There are apparently 30 million slaves worldwide. More than 11 million in India, and 13,000 in England (presumably sex workers from Eastern Europe). I believe these figures are exaggerated, but nevertheless, these numbers are claimed.
The Walk Free Foundation says that today, there are more than 9 million slaves in Africa, and they are all black Africans owned by black Africans.
Whilst slavery is totally hideous, that is how all the world has always been throughout history. That is to say, in all the world, and in all
history. The world should not be like that today, yet there are many more slaves than there has ever been in the past, and the price of a slave has fallen from $40,000 in 1850, in real terms, to less than $90 today (Professor Kevin Bales CMG). Supply and demand.
How I would love to buy as many slaves as I could afford for $90, and set them free.
We can do nothing for those slaves who died hundreds of years ago, but we in the west, should help today’s 30 million slaves. Foreign Aid should not be given to countries who enslave people, for example.
Dr.Livingstone said that Africa must be colonised “to bring Christianity, to set the example of civilisation, and to relieve the yoke of human suffering”. This would come about through trade and education.
They are beautiful words for a wonderful and noble ideal. This was the true dream of the Empire – teaching the world to have the same benefits that England enjoyed, to trade, and to live in accord with Christian values. A symbiotic relationship.
Dr Livingstone in his 1857 Cambridge speech, also said “It is far better to mitigate the horrors of slavery and barbarism by introducing the blessings of Christianity, commerce, and civilisation in their stead.”
The economist, Adam Smith said that trade is a civilising force.
General Gordon of Khartoum devoted his entire life to ending slavery, as did many more of our leaders and prominent people. Hannah Moore was a famous campaigner.
William Wilberforce said “God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners”. (´Reformation of manners’ meant bringing religious discipline to English parishes.)
The Boer War was primarily about the removal of human rights shown to non Boer residents of South Africa, and the return to slavery of the native Africans. Not as the BBC said, because we wanted the gold mines.
But none of these facts will ever be accepted nor repeated by the woke ´ignorati´ who think they know enough about the history of slavery (without having read a single book), to hate the one country that had the morality, the determination and the resources to bring it to an end.
Ending slavery was arguably Britain’s greatest achievement and certainly, no country has ever equalled such a humanitarian deed.
We should be immensely proud of the character of the British people who unilaterally sacrificed so much for this cause.
Should there be reparations for Roman slavery ? For the Vikings ? For the Barbary pirates ? All muslim countries ? The Germans and Japanese during WW2 ? (They had 100 million slaves.)
And the biggest slavers of all – the Africans. Yes, the Africans ! The ones who want reparations !
If you search YouTube for ‘American reacts to Britain ending slavery’, you will hear the African American presenter say “Why weren’t we taught this at school ?” It is a very good question. For reasons I will never understand, the Western education system only wants to teach how evil Britain and the west was, whilst hiding the truth which is exact opposite.
About 25 years ago, a ship was wrecked off the coast of Africa on its way to the Middle East. It was on the UK news because, although the passengers were saved, curiously, they were all children. Some time later a reporter went to Africa to follow up the story. She discovered the children were slaves being delivered to arab countries, and after being rescued and returned to their home villages, they had subsequently been restored to another ship to continue their journey into slavery.
The most horrific interview I recall was in a village where a man had several wives and when his children were born, they were soon sold into slavery. The father treated his ‘business’ as a farmer treats livestock, but with less compassion.
William Cowper (1784)
“Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free,
They touch our country and their shackles fall.
That’s noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing.”
Efunroye Tinubu Statue
“Acts of heroism and sacrifice for the common good”
Irony from her descendant !
