Slavery

[XFool]

Transatlantic slavery continued for years after 1867, historian finds

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/04/transatlantic-slavery-continued-for-years-after-1867-historian-finds

Exclusive: Evidence found by Hannah Durkin includes ships landing in Cuba in 1872, and people held in Benin in 1873

[Urbandreamer]

I REALLY hate articles like this.

It's uninformative and claims things that are very dubious. I certainly doubt that any historian worth their salt would assume that any country could end an international trade.

Worse it feeds into stereotype. I was dubious about what I was told about the UK being "responsible" for "the" slave trade. Well I was both right and wrong. It existed before and after we were involved. However the Crown and UK merchants were responsible for the bulk over the years.

So, what does this article tell us? Oh that a UK individual continued after the England made it a criminal offense? Or possibly that slavery continued? Heads up, it still does. I suspect that if you research, you may find that modern slavery happens in the UK today, despite it being criminal.

Indeed I dredged up a Guardian link too, but rejected it because it wasn't about transatlantic slavery.

[Lootman]

I REALLY hate articles like this.

It's uninformative and claims things that are very dubious. I certainly doubt that any historian worth their salt would assume that any country could end an international trade.

Worse it feeds into stereotype. I was dubious about what I was told about the UK being "responsible" for "the" slave trade. Well I was both right and wrong. It existed before and after we were involved. However the Crown and UK merchants were responsible for the bulk over the years.

So, what does this article tell us? Oh that a UK individual continued after the England made it a criminal offense? Or possibly that slavery continued? Heads up, it still does. I suspect that if you research, you may find that modern slavery happens in the UK today, despite it being criminal.

Indeed I dredged up a Guardian link too, but rejected it because it wasn't about transatlantic slavery.

It also feeds into the reparations nonsense. People need to stop with all this maudlin wallowing and move on.

[servodude]

I REALLY hate articles like this.

It's uninformative and claims things that are very dubious. I certainly doubt that any historian worth their salt would assume that any country could end an international trade.

Worse it feeds into stereotype. I was dubious about what I was told about the UK being "responsible" for "the" slave trade. Well I was both right and wrong. It existed before and after we were involved. However the Crown and UK merchants were responsible for the bulk over the years.

So, what does this article tell us? Oh that a UK individual continued after the England made it a criminal offense? Or possibly that slavery continued? Heads up, it still does. I suspect that if you research, you may find that modern slavery happens in the UK today, despite it being criminal.

Indeed I dredged up a Guardian link too, but rejected it because it wasn't about transatlantic slavery.

It also feeds into the reparations nonsense. People need to stop with all this maudlin wallowing and move on.

Stopped celebrating Pesach/Passover in your house then?

[Urbandreamer]

It also feeds into the reparations nonsense. People need to stop with all this maudlin wallowing and move on.

Stopped celebrating Pesach/Passover in your house then?

Not sure what that has specifically to do with slavery (transatlantic or modern). However Babylon did have rules about slavery that were significantly more lax than the rules enforced in the south of the US and in the caribbean.

Slaves could earn in their own right. They could buy themselves or their children out of slavery.
Not the same, but that was my point.

We can't find a bucket and dump it all in.
It's stupid, and that is what I complained about. Simple stupidity.

Anyone noticed the similarity between slave and slav. The Vikings use to carry people from all those countries with slav in their name to Byzantium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_slave_trade

Of course that doesn't excuse our bulk in the trade over the years.

[servodude]

Stopped celebrating Pesach/Passover in your house then?

Not sure what that has specifically to do with slavery (transatlantic or modern).

Just that some still seem to be going on about their liberation from slavery a few thousand years after the fact without incurring the ire of the gammon classes

[GoSeigen]

I REALLY hate articles like this.

It's uninformative and claims things that are very dubious. I certainly doubt that any historian worth their salt would assume that any country could end an international trade.

Worse it feeds into stereotype. I was dubious about what I was told [...]

Sceptical you mean?

Anyway can you identify two of the claims you feel are dubious in the article please?
Also in what way is it uninformative? It clearly was not written to be a encyclopaedic exploration of the topic of slavery but to report the findings of a particular piece of research, which I thought it performed reasonably well.

Of course you're entitled to hate any article you like but the reasons given don't make sense to me...

GS

[scrumpyjack]

Not sure what that has specifically to do with slavery (transatlantic or modern).

Just that some still seem to be going on about their liberation from slavery a few thousand years after the fact without incurring the ire of the gammon classes

Yes I'm so glad we finally escaped our enslavement by ancient Rome, but I'm still waiting for reparations from Ms Meloni

[GoSeigen]

Just that some still seem to be going on about their liberation from slavery a few thousand years after the fact without incurring the ire of the gammon classes

White people are still really uncomfortable about discussing any negative aspect of their past, while of course endlessly criticising other "races" for all sorts of faults both past and present. If you're in any way woke (in the original sense) it is damned uncomfortable just having to sit and listen to the whinging, but the moment you stick your head up and raise a topic like slavery or any other colonial atrocity, you are promptly informed that history has actually been wiped out. I quote verbatim from a text exchange I had recently: "This is a present problem. The past is buried and gone." Yet you can guarantee that when it comes to the glorious achievements of white colonialism -- the marvellous industrial revolution for example, "discovery" of the new world, frustration of fiendish Catholic plots, etc -- the past is still very much alive and kicking.

GS

[Bubblesofearth]

White people are still really uncomfortable about discussing any negative aspect of their past

GS

It's not my past. I haven't enslaved anyone nor do I condone slavery. Why should I feel anything at all about what people that are now long dead did to each other? You or others might like to put me in a particular box or tell me that I'm part of some tribe or other but that's not my problem.

BoE

[Urbandreamer]

I REALLY hate articles like this.

It's uninformative and claims things that are very dubious. I certainly doubt that any historian worth their salt would assume that any country could end an international trade.

Worse it feeds into stereotype. I was dubious about what I was told [...]

Sceptical you mean?

Anyway can you identify two of the claims you feel are dubious in the article please?
Also in what way is it uninformative? It clearly was not written to be a encyclopaedic exploration of the topic of slavery but to report the findings of a particular piece of research, which I thought it performed reasonably well.

Of course you're entitled to hate any article you like but the reasons given don't make sense to me...

GS

You mean in addition to the one that I already did?

Historians have generally assumed that the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1867, but it actually continued into the following decade, according to new research.

It's the FIRST line for goodness sake.
Then we have

“It shows how recently the slave trade ended. The thefts of people’s lives have been written out of history and haven’t been recorded.”

As I said, read the news papers, yes even this one, and you know that the only person writing peoples lives out of history is the person who claimed that the slave trade has ended.

Talking of newspapers

Although Stanley’s account had appeared in the New York Herald at the time, Durkin said it was another overlooked key piece of evidence that she unearthed.

So this is a report about someone who formed a wrong opinion, or did she?

Just possibly she is advertising her new book.

Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade will be published by William Collins on 18 January

What I really hate about articles like this is the suggestion that those reading it must be uninformed. The subject is irrelevant. The article starts with a straw man that not only you and I, but people who have studied the subject in detail must erroneous believe.

Yes that position really does make me froth at the mouth.

That sort of thing is not limited to that newspaper of course. We seem to have an example in this very thread of someone making assumptions of those reading the thread.

[XFool]

I REALLY hate articles like this.

It's uninformative and claims things that are very dubious. I certainly doubt that any historian worth their salt would assume that any country could end an international trade.

The first words in the article headline are: "Transatlantic slavery..."

The first clause in the body of the article is: "Historians have generally assumed that the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1867"

[XFool]

What I really hate about articles like this is the suggestion that those reading it must be uninformed. The subject is irrelevant. The article starts with a straw man that not only you and I, but people who have studied the subject in detail must erroneous believe.

Yes that position really does make me froth at the mouth.

That sort of thing is not limited to that newspaper of course. We seem to have an example in this very thread of someone making assumptions of those reading the thread.

Good grief!

[Lootman]

White people are still really uncomfortable about discussing any negative aspect of their past

It's not my past. I haven't enslaved anyone nor do I condone slavery. Why should I feel anything at all about what people that are now long dead did to each other? You or others might like to put me in a particular box or tell me that I'm part of some tribe or other but that's not my problem.

Indeed and I find these attempts to try and make us feel guilt or shame about something that happened centuries ago to be distasteful. They actually make me less supportive of their cause.

There is nobody alive today whose grandparents were either slaves, slave owners or slave traders. Nothing to see here.

[servodude]

White people are still really uncomfortable about discussing any negative aspect of their past

GS

It's not my past. I haven't enslaved anyone nor do I condone slavery. Why should I feel anything at all about what people that are now long dead did to each other? You or others might like to put me in a particular box or tell me that I'm part of some tribe or other but that's not my problem.

BoE

Exactly!
So when some fud says "Muslims" "Jews" "black people" do "something" please be similarly outspoken
- Cos they're the muppets we should be kicking in the moofer

[scrumpyjack]

White people are still really uncomfortable about discussing any negative aspect of their past

GS

It's not my past. I haven't enslaved anyone nor do I condone slavery. Why should I feel anything at all about what people that are now long dead did to each other? You or others might like to put me in a particular box or tell me that I'm part of some tribe or other but that's not my problem.

BoE

If I had inherited a large country estate that had been acquired by an ancestors profits from slave sugar plantations (that's where a lot of British Aristocracy money came from!), then that might be a reason for guilt, but otherwise I quite agree with Bubblesofearth. Slavery has gone on for millenia and was far far worse in ancient Rome, who enslaved millions irrespective of skin colour, but we don't try to hammer the modern day Italians, do we?

[Nimrod103]

It's not my past. I haven't enslaved anyone nor do I condone slavery. Why should I feel anything at all about what people that are now long dead did to each other? You or others might like to put me in a particular box or tell me that I'm part of some tribe or other but that's not my problem.

BoE

If I had inherited a large country estate that had been acquired by an ancestors profits from slave sugar plantations (that's where a lot of British Aristocracy money came from!), then that might be a reason for guilt, but otherwise I quite agree with Bubblesofearth. Slavery has gone on for millenia and was far far worse in ancient Rome, who enslaved millions irrespective of skin colour, but we don't try to hammer the modern day Italians, do we?

All this completely airbrushes out the actions of the UK, particularly the British Navy, against slavery and slavers post William Wilberforce.
I am currently working my way through Thomas Pakenham's monumental work 'The Scramble for Africa', and one of the things I have come away with so far, is that Britain's involvement in East and West Africa between 1850 and 1900 was almost totally driven by the desire to abolish slavery. The impetus for this mainly came from religious and other organizations lobbying in the UK. Christian campaigners successfully fought successive governments that really were reluctant to extend British responsiblities in these areas, although they were generally interested in countering competing French and German attempts on British economic interests primarily in the Suez Canal and South Africa.

[DrFfybes]

It's not my past. I haven't enslaved anyone nor do I condone slavery. Why should I feel anything at all about what people that are now long dead did to each other? You or others might like to put me in a particular box or tell me that I'm part of some tribe or other but that's not my problem.

BoE

If I had inherited a large country estate that had been acquired by an ancestors profits from slave sugar plantations (that's where a lot of British Aristocracy money came from!), then that might be a reason for guilt, but otherwise I quite agree with Bubblesofearth. Slavery has gone on for millenia and was far far worse in ancient Rome, who enslaved millions irrespective of skin colour, but we don't try to hammer the modern day Italians, do we?

Exactly. My ancestors were miners and Iron Workers around Telford in the 1700/1800s, until my Grandfather was lucky enough to get an education. I won't defend slavery, but I won't take the blame for it.

Last year we got a tour of a large private Country Estate at Hatton, a few miles South of Telford. It has been in the same family since it was built in late 1770s The afternoon included High Tea in their cricket pavillion. He was very open about how the family made their money from Coal, although admitted his ancestors had tried to hide it. I thought about asking for reparations, but it was fairly apparent that they were struggling to keep the Estate going.

I'm waiting for someone to demand the Pope apologises for the Crusades.

Paul

[ursaminortaur]

If I had inherited a large country estate that had been acquired by an ancestors profits from slave sugar plantations (that's where a lot of British Aristocracy money came from!), then that might be a reason for guilt, but otherwise I quite agree with Bubblesofearth. Slavery has gone on for millenia and was far far worse in ancient Rome, who enslaved millions irrespective of skin colour, but we don't try to hammer the modern day Italians, do we?

Exactly. My ancestors were miners and Iron Workers around Telford in the 1700/1800s, until my Grandfather was lucky enough to get an education. I won't defend slavery, but I won't take the blame for it.

Last year we got a tour of a large private Country Estate at Hatton, a few miles South of Telford. It has been in the same family since it was built in late 1770s The afternoon included High Tea in their cricket pavillion. He was very open about how the family made their money from Coal, although admitted his ancestors had tried to hide it. I thought about asking for reparations, but it was fairly apparent that they were struggling to keep the Estate going.

I'm waiting for someone to demand the Pope apologises for the Crusades.

Paul

He has already done it - though I don't think there are any plans for the Catholic church to pay reparations.

https://archive.is/A1wfv

The crusading army sacked wealthy Constantinople in desperation, having built up a huge debt to the Republic of Venice, which had provided it with ships.
Reconciliation with the Orthodox Church has become a focal point of the Pope's 25-year reign and has gained in urgency as his health increasingly fails. The Vatican has long hoped to bring about a meeting between the Pope and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II, who has so far refused to see the Roman Catholic head, accusing Catholic priests of proselytising on Russian soil.
On a visit to Athens in 2001 the Pope asked God's forgiveness for Catholics, who he said had committed sins against Orthodox Christians for 1,000 years. He has also apologised to Muslims for the Crusades.

[Lootman]

It's not my past. I haven't enslaved anyone nor do I condone slavery. Why should I feel anything at all about what people that are now long dead did to each other? You or others might like to put me in a particular box or tell me that I'm part of some tribe or other but that's not my problem

If I had inherited a large country estate that had been acquired by an ancestors profits from slave sugar plantations (that's where a lot of British Aristocracy money came from!), then that might be a reason for guilt, but otherwise I quite agree with Bubblesofearth. Slavery has gone on for millenia and was far far worse in ancient Rome, who enslaved millions irrespective of skin colour, but we don't try to hammer the modern day Italians, do we?

Depends. If my ancestors had made money centuries ago from trading something that was perfectly legal at the time, I probably could not be intimidated into feeling guilty about it. And especially if my ancestors had also done a lot of good works, as many such families did.

More generally I think it is a mistake to morally judge the actions of one time from the moral standpoint of a very different and later time.

But as it is my grandfathers were a coal miner and a farm labourer, so I feel guilty about nothing and am 100% opposed to reparations.