The Slave Trade: 200 Years On

It has been two hundred years since the abolition of the slave trade. Britain was instrumental in its establishment, but also in its dismantling. Today protesters have marched in chains to call for the British government to make a formal appology for the sins of its father. But the question: should Britain apologise? Would it be the decent thing to do, or would it have little meaning today? If the British government can pardon soldiers executed for cowardice during WW1, can they not also make an appology for the actions of their forbears?

 

I think we have allot to appologise for, Including the cowardice shootings and slavery.

Bloody sunday, the mine closures, Glencoe...hell the list goes on

 

Yeah, apologise! NOW! Grrrr

 

No apologies necessary, I do not believe one can apologise for the actions of the departed to do so is arrogant. One can agree that actions in the past are shameful but that is not the same as apologising.

To pardon the soldiers of WW1 is different in the fact that you are dealing with living first generation relatives. Evidence for conviction could still be reviewed and decisions revised.

 

could you give me any evidence that britian was instrumental in the establishment of the slave trade ? slavery has been around for a hell of a long time

It was one of the first countrys to outlaw slavery and did more to get rid of slavery worldwide than just about any country on earth. The slave trade of european people to africa was as large in number and possibly more brutal and lasted far longer than any slavery of africans by the british .

I would like a real apology from the africans for raiding the west country for centurys and carrying off whole villages to be sold in the slave markets of tunis.

 

Erm, the Africans raiding the West Country? Erm, yes, quite, I'm just going to walk away from you very slowly and you're going to stand perfectly still and not bite me or anything :drool:

 

And you know what I mean, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, where goods were shipped from Britain to Africa in exchange for slaves, which were shipped across to the Americas...

 

I remember President Clinton doing an apology tour of Africa in the late 90's

wondering what do posters here think of that ?

Britian did not invent slavery, indeed Britons were shipped as slaves to The Roman Empire during the early part of Roman Empire. Do Britons feel in need of an apology from Italians?

There were no slaves in England, twas a colonial thing, of course the powerful may have looked the other way, but in truth they could not have stopped slavery during the 17th & 18th Centuries. Perhaps the residents of said former colonies should be the ones apologising, not residents of England.

 

That there were no slaves in England, does not absolve Britain, considering it's central role in the transportation of slaves to the Americas. Moreover, I think the point of the protest was to indicate the extent to which the wealth of the Western powers was built upon the slave trade. To argue for an apology from the Italians would, of course, be nonsensical. But it is a very logical point to make that these modern nation states were built on the back of slaves from Africa in the relatively recent past. An apology costs nothing. It might not mean much, but as mentioned, if the British state can pardon executed soldiers during WW1, this is no less pointless. What would make more sense, in the American context, would be compensation to descendents of slaves, though this is not applicable to the British case....

 

?

 

Well it's wouldn't be a call for an apology from the American or British people, so the self-identified 'we' is unnecessary. It would be a call for an apology from the American government as an institution. As before, if subsequent governments can pardon soldiers who were killed long before any in that government were actually born, why can the same extention not be made for the slave trade?

 

spoken like a true Texan

 

not to mention the fact that an entire war was fought in the States because certain areas wanted to keep slaves so bad. and still these areas hide behind the confederate flag waving that proudly along side the American flag because "it's part of their heritage."

i do think the US nation in particular should apologize for Slavery and all that was built on the backs of dark-skinned people. I also think they should apologize more to the Native Americans too (but that's not part of this discusion).

I don't see this as just some "NAACP" crap as someone so eloquently put it; and honestly when I see anyone say something like that the first thought that crosses my mind is "bigot". I think an apolgoy is something that it is fully justified. There are many blacks who were uneducated or undereducated, raped, obviously forced to work without pay, had to fear for their lives on a daily basis, and still they got nothing as their white counterparts were given the upper hand and grew wealthy. When the slaves were set free, they weren't given even $10 and told to get on with their lives. They were left with not a penny to their name and then had to fight continuously against bigots and racially biased people to gain good education and earn any sort of money. Hell for many years they couldn't ride anywhere they wanted to on a bus or even use the same toilet or drinking fountain as their white counterparts.

It's not just slavery that the US government should apologize for it is slavery and the continued oppression of a group of people because of the colour of their skin.

And, well, if you think that the same sorts of behaviour doesn't still go on today in a lot of places in America then you are extremely naive.

Look at New Orleans for example. If mostly rich white people lived there it would be fixed by now. But, since it is mainly poor ethnic people living there it is still an unliveable area.

Even though I am white, there are so many places I would never want to even step foot in back in the States because of the racial bias and extremist thoughts against people that are different. It's truly scary and disgusting that places like that can exist in a modern country.


And yes, Britain was integral in how slavery came about. The British government I'm sure earned plenty of shillings off the sale and trade of Africans to the United States. Overall though, the responsibility they share for what occurred so many years ago is fleeting in comparision to the responsibility the American government has for what occurred.

 

Lets look at another one


Peace Pheonix hope I'm not hijacking your thread!

Do Brits owe the Irish any apologies for colonial exploitation ?


:troll:

 

No worries, going a little off topic in the name of debate is rarely a bad thing. Interesting that you choose the Irish example though, considering it's still such a contentious issue to this day and considering part of Ireland is still under British rule. In my opinion, the exploitation of the colonies by the British does deserve apology. But this should not be any simple verbal tidbit. Colonialism, Empire, and their successors in modern globalised capitalism, though we should not ignore corruption amongst Third World governments, have done much to channel wealth from developing countries to the poor. Any form of appology should be through economic compensation. As the slave trade was dismantled, the European powers found new, subtler, ways to enslave populations. When the British began to colonise India, it was an ascending regional power with a wealth of natural and human resources. When they left, it was a Third World state in ruin. It has taken half a century for India to find its feet again....

 

your knowledge of history is mighty ropey, but understandable , google barbery pirates, north africans did raid england they also had slave breeding camps for white slaves in north africa .


The very word slave comes from slav because the people who were made slaves more than any other people were slavonic european people who were enslaved by arabs and north africans.

Read robinson crusoe he in the first part of the book is captured by barbery pirates and the whole crew hes with are made into galley slaves often male slaves were castrated unless they wished to breed from them for some reason .

Actually british slavery of other people is a minor blip compared , there wont be a film made about this more extensive slavery because of the racism of our society but there have been a few books written looking at the relative numbers involved and as I said earlier it went on longer and was more extensive.
you see glimpses of this slavery if you read original texts form the 16th 17th century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_pirates most of the slaves taken out of europe came from slavonic countrys russia the ukraine the balkans but you also had slavers raiding pretty much all of europe .

I know that the russians have asked that if africans are going to get reparations for slavery that they should get reperations from arabs and north africans for the many millions of their people for thousands of years made into slaves .

I just looked up Islamic slavery on wikipedia and it seems to be a total white wash, they have loads on the trans atlantic slave trade but seem to discount a much larger trade in slaves on which the transatlantic slave trade was modelled to a extent .

when we started to get involved in slavery we got into a business that was mostly controlled by arabs in many cases the slave forts in africa we bought slaves from were arab controlled , when europeans started to destroy the slave trade most of the people they fought and killed were arabs .

 

How often do you come across "true Texan"s?

 

lol ... i'd thought of putting beside that remark ... "no offense trombonebleu"

i've known plenty in my life. and i mean you seem ok so far from what i've read of your posts (though obviously i don't know you) but out of everyone I have ever met that has hailed from the great state of Te-has I can't say I found any of them to be people I'd want to associate with or know in any way.

 

well, that's fair enough if you've known some. the truth i would agree with you about the vast majority. but there is a hidden minority there that are great people, and not quite the tag normally given. there would be more i suppose, but like me, they got out. but as a native texan, i don't like the blanket statement, even if it is true for the majority.

as for the wider issue, instead of apologising for slavery, i'd like to see the world end it. it's still going on, just in far more subtle fashion, and by fashion, check where your clothes are made. The horror stories of children being held at gunpoint to make clothes in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and even China...it doesn't make sense to me to apologise to one group for something hundreds of years ago when it's still going on now; now would seem to take precedent IMO.

And it's true, it's been going on for thousands and thousands of years. Who worked the Egyptian salt mines back when that was the currency of choice? The people the Huns didn't wipe out? Dynasty after dynasty of Chinese rule? The Aztecs and anybody else? Yep. Slaves. It's a sad but true fact of history. We know more about the trans-atlantic slave route to the Americas and Carribbean due simply to historic record, but that doesn't make it more wrong. IMO there should be an apology for all slavery, done in the form of abolisihing it how it exists today.

 

North African pirates, well yes I've heard of that, but not that they've raided the West Country, I can't see anything about that on wiki.

Nevertheless Jonny, your method of argument is mighty ropey, though understandable, I suppose. It's the same thing you do every time on the Palestinian issue. You just talk about how much worse someone else is, without really addressing the issue at hand....