Topic: 200 year anniversary

[ACE]

I know the slave trade is a thing that should never have happened and also it is a time in history that should never be forgot. Now is it just me or am I reading it wrong. It seems to have turned into a black/white confrontation. The africans had already used each other as slaves before we got there, Scots and Irish were also sold into slavery.Why isn't this mentioned more? As for an apology, I would have thought that the abolition of the slave trade was an apology in itself and it was not just the English involved, I believe the Portugese were bigger villians than we were, along with the arabs, spanish, french etc.

[Tin Shed]

Ace, I watched a programme a while back about a black guy who went in search of his slave ancesters. He met up with some elders from the tribe his ancester came from -they said that the tribal elders often used the 'slave system' to raise money or to get rid of troublesome youngsters.  The young man was quite horrified to realise that his own ancester had probably been sold into slavery by his own people. Nothing is as ever simple as it seems.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Slavery's been pretty much universal, and in fact there are more slaves now than in 'slavery days'. The unique things about the Atlantic trade were its brutality, the numbers involved, the amount of money made, and the way Africa was systematically destabilised in order to maintain the flow of prisoners. In most situations, slaves had legal rights, and at least some chance of getting back home. In many, they could achieve high office. There was none of that in plantation slavery.

It was the Jamaican planters who originally turned it into a black-white thing. By far the greatest number of slaves were black, and when traditional justifications for it stopped working as the anti-slavery movement grew, they turned to race. A guy called Edward Long published his History of Jamaica in 1774, in which he argued that Africans were closer to apes than they were to Europeans. Unfortunately I can't lay my hands on any direct quotes right now, they'd shock you. Other people followed his lead, and eventually his ideas evolved into the idea of white superiority and 'the White Man's burden' which were used to justify colonialism.

[Marymary]

Well said Robert.  Nothing can justify such despicable behaviour and we need to work to help those people caught up in it today as well as acknowledging the part our ancestors played and the debt we owe to countries they plundered.

[okra]

Well put Robert. It is also a fact that many of our so called Lords and Ladies and large institutions like Braclays and Midland Banks were basically established on slave trade money. I understand Barclays are still refusing to release records from the period.

[emmy1978]

Right on Robert. The amount of money made by the white European traders was disgusting and they viewed black people as less than human. Entire cities like Liverpool and Bristol were made on the back of money made from trading slaves. I would be gutted if i found slave traders in my ancestry and would feel very real guilt.
The history is horrifying and shocking as Robert says. I had to study this period in time as part of my course and it was very painful reading.
I think if an apology would make people feel better then it should be given. Not because it was our fault directly, as it obviously isn't, but because it would be a gesture badly needed to the black community in this country, and the world over. Like the decimation of the american indian population, it really wasn't all that long ago.
200 years is really nothing and although the abolition act stopped the trade in new slaves, it did not reach plantations in the West indies for much longer and many died slaves or bought their freedom before they were given it.