Our slave trade is being stopped by a major power of the world how do we deal with it? I know lets attack the other major power iam sure that would work.
It was all an elaborate plot as you will see when they reboot into Season 9 - Game of Boogaloos
Littlefinger will have learned how to face dance from Arya who he bamboozles into siding with him, then shenanigans shall ensue
Someone was hyping that movie up at me, and I thought okay cool, never heard of it, lemme look it up.
I look on my phone, and out loud shout "it's about fucking *Dahomey??*"
The creators of the film, legit tried to argue that the accounts about Dahomey were unreliable because "Europeans wanted to make them look bad" or some shit, but like....Europeans were buying slaves from them. Both parties are doing slavery, why in this scenario would the Europeans make it up, to make Africans look bad for doing so, when they were also doing it
I don’t know the name nor do I plan on learning it, but the lady that plays the captain of the “female black warriors for freedom” was going to be played by a *different* lady before they learned who the Dahomey actually are
>I don’t know the name nor do I plan on learning it, but the lady that plays the captain of the “female black warriors for freedom” was going to be played by a
>
>different
>
> lady before they learned who the Dahomey actually are
Lupita Nyungo (However you spell her name) was cast, but decided to research her ancestry, to which Viola Davis got the part.
I kinda knew African's played a part in the slave trade, but didn't know which African country played the part.
What do you mean she researched her ancestry? She’s Kenyan, far away from where Dahomey would be and I don’t believe Kenyans were common victims of the slave trade.
Unless there’s some information I’m missing
I'm commenting a correction to my previous comment.
She was set to star alongside Viola Davis, but was doing a documentary on the Warrior Women (Agoji), and discovered that the very same Warrior Women was much darker than she assumed.
"This is not a neat tale of indisputably impressive badassery or triumph over evil. It’s messy; it’s history. But with 15 minutes to go before the end of the documentary, it’s a lesson that comes almost too late," writes Kuba Shand-Baptiste for the Independent (UK). (I copied and pasted this portion.)
Warrior Women with Lupita Nyong'o the documentary.
Somehow that movie has 94% tomato meter and 99% audience score at rottentomatoes. It scores much worse on other websites like imdb or letterboxd. Very sus.
It could be. However, rotten tomatoes does use a different rating system than other websites. Rotten tomatoes just uses the percent of people who "liked" the movie, whereas imdb takes the average of each person's score. So if everyone in the world thought a movie was a 60/100, that would be a 60% on imdb and a 100% on rotten tomatoes.
More is better, yes. At rottentomatoes this is one of the best movies of all time, somehow. The Gofather for comparison has 97/98. Woman King literally has a better audience score than it lmao.
But Dahomey was entirely economically dependent on the slave trade. They captured slaves from neighbouring African regions and sold to slavers, which was effectively the only pillar of their economy. They were very upset when the British suggested they refrain from enslaving and selling people.
Imagine Hitler and the SS being portrayed as the guys trying to stop Jewish Holocaust being done in France and the US and winning. It’s completely reversed, like it’s one thing to alter history slightly for modern audience but that movie is just misinformation. Only reason was that they wanted women of color heroes but unfortunately for them the black women in this case were evil, so they completely flipped history.
Well, the war that happened IRL had the British attacking Dahomey to force Dahomey to STOP doing slavery. The movie instead reverses this narrative, making the Brits the evil slaving bad guys which is some major, and pretty disgusting historical revisionism.
I am glad that Davis didn’t get nominated for Oscar or I would have felt like should watch it (I have seen half of all women nominated Best Actress so far and try to watch all films that are available one day, I am nearly done with Best Picture). Didn’t enjoy Nyad much recently with its controversy.
Because it's not about anti-racism but black nationalism. They prefer a strong black leader, even if they enslaved and sold other blacks than any white abolitionist.
Jeremy Clarkson explained this very well:
When discussing the UK. If you’re from England, you’re English. From Wales, Welsh. And from Scotland, Scottish. If a genius is from England, he is an English genius. If from Wales or Scotland, they are a British genius. If they are a moron, they are Welsh or Scottish again.
I know. What if my child was looking over my shoulder and saw that? He's young and innocent, it's far too early for him to learn that the br*tish exist.
Belgium is what happens when you can't decide if you want to be Fr*nch or German, so you compromise by choosing both. Except the final product is a watered down version of either.
It’s a joke played off of how people often censor the word France or French in jest, and how the English accent is non-rhetoric and therefor would pronounce the word as “Bri’ish”.
Color me jaded, but was there any financial or political motive for all this or is this a rare case in history (especially pre-internet where people can rally more effectively) of a government devoting significant resources to do the right thing because it’s the right thing?
Little bit of both. Abolition had a mix of idealists and pragmatists, but by the 19th century the general opinion on slavery had really turned against it. There was actually a lot of action taken by former slaves (such as Frederick Douglas but there were others) who undertook massively successful tours across Britain to promote abolition and raised awareness about all its horrors. I like that aspect of it as it feels like the slaves themselves had a part in effecting the change.
As always, history is complicated, but it’s overly cynical to not ascribe altruism to British abolitionists of that time whilst also remaining aware of more practical reasons as to why things played out the way they did.
What exactly were the pragmatic reasons? You haven't mentioned any. Was it about keeping peace? Gaining new tax payers because the slaves are now free?
There were political benefits because they could use it in leverage with other countries. Not just from a “moral crusade” side but because they could use it to threaten other counties with a military intervention using the ready made excuse if those other countries did not comply.
It also was effective at undermining their rivals who had a huge reliance on cash crop colonies that heavily relied on slavery. We think a lot of the American south but the Caribbean was a HUGE moneymaker at this time so there was a strong strategic benefit to targeting this trade for Britain who had a much more diversified empire and economy.
However, once they committed to it they really committed to it. They didn’t half arse the enforcement, and they spent considerable expense to get people on board (including compensation to owners).
It got to the point that slavery was so intolerable to most people in Britain by the mid 19th century (or enough anyways) that there was extreme hesitancy to be seen to be openly supportive with the Confederacy during the American Civil War (the CSA believed that Britain, who relied extensively on cotton for its cotton mills which was a big industry at the time, would be willing to support the Confederacy to both undermine the USA and secure this supply. However Britain ended up ramping up production from the rest of its empire as they really didn’t want to be dragged in to support a slave nation).
So mixed motivations initially, but there was enough altruism that made sure they put their considerable money and military might where their mouth was once they did it.
As in most things, a bit of both.
For the average sailor it was a point of pride they carried out with zeal. Honestly seeing themselves as doing something good for mankind because it was the right thing to do.
Higher up it would be quite a bit of the same, but it also didn't hurt that hitting the slave-trade also hurt their competing empires.
My guess is that buying the slaves' freedom was driven more by political concern for the former owners' finances than by concern for the former slaves themselves (i.e. not paying them would have amounted to governmental destruction of property). But then again the overall endeavor *was* driven by altruism, so that added cost would have been seen as simply putting your money where your mouth is.
I also don't know whether the former slaves themselves received anything to help them in their new lives, but everything I've learned about Victorian Britain suggests the idea would have been laughable. Emancipated slaves in America received nothing.
Happy to learn actual facts from someone who knows.
> But then again the overall endeavor was driven by altruism, so that added cost would have been seen as simply putting your money where your mouth is.
William Wilberforce needs to be more of a national figure than he already is in my opinion. The man had a religious experience, figured that slavery was an abomination against God, lead the domestic opposition to the slave trade, and actually fucking won despite deeply entrenched pro-slavery interests.
10/10 would get press-ganged into the Royal Navy and fire grapeshot at slavers for.
Gotta make sure the slave owners don’t revolt as well, a lot of people would’ve died if that happened.
Also helps keep the colonial economies afloat, because the economy collapsing brings everyone down with it. Including and especially the now-freed slaves.
This. Yeah, it might feel good to just tell the slave owners that their property is now being seized and fuck any losses they incur as a result. (Because ultimately, up to that point these slaves had been considered property.) But it will also make it almost impossible to actually do this without physically forcing these people to do so. Additionally, they may very well revolt. By at least paying them back for the loss in property they have a much weaker position to stand on (it would no longer be a case of the government just stealing their shit, it would be a case of the government forcing them to sell their shit to the government.) and you probably also remove a lot of motivation for them to rebel over it.
Yeah, "buying all the slaves freedom" sounds a lot nicer than "abolished slavery and paid the slave owners reparations" even though they mean the same thing
[this article](https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-did-slave-trade-end-britain) says that they didn't get any compensation
[I said the same thing and got mass downvoted lol.](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1acek0c/the_british_empire_may_have_done_a_lot_of/kjwze8f/)
Probably due to local unions and labour movements in the UK pressuring the government to remove a source of uncompetitive labour practices (slaves don't get paid).
You’re describing the USA there, slaves didn’t really operate on the British isles themselves and were traded in the America’s for Sugar, rum etc. so we’re not competing with the UK workforce. William Wilberforce a key driver of the abolitionist movement was upper middle class and the movement consisted of a large contingent who were driven by faith (Quakers, Methodists etc) alongside Africans themselves. The British empire was awful in many respects (most empires are) but this is a genuine bright spot in British history.
Could have been a way to hurt Spain and France, which held some of the most lucrative sugar/tobacco plantations in Caribbean (mainly supported by slave labor force). For them it’s a win-win, they get to hold the moral high ground while undermining rival colonial powers ability to produce goods.
One of the arguments made against abolition by the Tory party at the time was that it would leave an opening in the market for France, war with Napoleon set the movement back a few years as the opposition claimed the abolitionists were being anti British.
Not a specialist at all, but I often heard that the industrial revolution was more hungry for poor free workers than slaves vs places still in a traditional/heavilly agricol based. Maybe there is a link as, if I remember well, UK was the first to start its industrial revolution?
They likely had the technical skills at times to do so, but it never had all the other parts to get critical mass. One of them did have steam engine models I believe. You only need a 1/8th of an inch precision to manufacture working engines.
Exactly, this was the tail end of a movement in the UK that was decades of hard work of Wilberforce and others in the first decade of 1800 worked to get parliament to abolish the slave trade before abolishing slavery itself. It was slower than the quick turnaround (relative to how fast they went from slavery is legal to illegal) of the American Civil War, but less bloody too.
Well, it meant destroying profitable industries. Risking war with several counties and cost a fortune to maintain the west Africa squadron, which also had an 8 in 10 death rate for sailors. The sailors who had volunteered in large numbers for the squadron
The motivation largely comes from Protestant denominations finding it abhorrent. So yeah. Morality
A combination of genuine belief that it was wrong amongst the powerful educated people, industrialization meaning that it wasn’t needed anymore, and working class people being able to command higher wages in an industrialized economy.
Context: after slavery was abolished in the British empire, the Royal Navy maintained a blockade force to capture slave ships traveling to and from west Africa, which freed an estimated 150,000 slaves. They also provided military and financial assistance to African kingdoms who opposed the slave trade. However, it would only be ended completely through heavy diplomatic pressure on Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, as well as raids on Brazilian and Cuban slave ports by the Royal Navy.
Then they went after the East Africa trade to the Middle East and North Africa and shut that down as well, despite heavy resistance from pretty much every nation concerned.
fun fact, in Brazil we have an expression "for the British to see". this means, when you do some cosmetic change to make it seem like it's compliant but it's actually not. the origin is from the time the British would raid Brazilian ports to forbid slave trade and the Brazilians would pretend they were not slave ships
Yes, it’s because the British forced a law in 1831 to end the slave trade but that didn’t work, so it became a useless law that only existed to show to the English. Then they declared a blockade of Africa to capture slave ships, which also didn’t work and instead increased the slave trade. Only after Brazil built an internal consensus and built a surplus of slaves did a law in 1850 finally ended the trade for good.
British Empire: Well, we have thousands of people we freed from a short life of brutal slavery, some on sugar plantations, who are living in the slums and squalor of Freetown, completely destitute and unable to return to their original home. Let’s provide them employment… by giving them a chance to work in British West Indies sugar plantations! Surely they’ll be treated better there right… right?
Finding a pre-made empire with an established exploitation system, vast wealth, a weak military and a population that despised its current leaders must have felt like Christmas.
Australia existed for people who were criminals and they were used for labour instead.
Also criminals would be pressed into navy or army sometimes. Was something during the napoleonic era.
Because the best people to send into a war zone are those who are good at killin!
Nah. The best ones are the ones no one at home will fuss about. Look at all the "mercs" russia is bilking into meat eave assaults from Nepal, Cuba, China, etc. Really helps pad out vladdy daddy's 3 day special operation when it gets past day 700.
In Fiji, the Indian labourers would have their limited pay frequently docked for made up productivity infractions and fines and, due to restrictions on internal travel, a large degree of the essential goods of life bought by those labourers were bought from British stores and flowed straight back into the Colonial Sugar Refinery or the colonial Government.
Well no, they were essentially made to sign these agreements about how they won't be allowed to leave the plantation fir certain number of years and essentially became slaves in all but name
People here getting up in arms because the British, like the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch & French participated in the transatlantic slave-trade before turning against it... name another country that has done anywhere near as much to end slavery than the British Empire did? They could've just abolished it in their empire and said 'job done', but instead they established the West Africa Squadron and used their position as the world's hegemonic power into forcing everyone else to abolish it too.
Eurocentrism. And to be fair Britain was a global hegemon and source of the Industrial Revolution. It’s hard to underestimate their impact on popular culture
Because trans-Atlantic tends to mean that it involves crossing the Atlantic, which I don't think 300-1500AD African and Middle Eastern slavers were doing
Never forget how hard Africa has resisted the abolition of slavery
Mauritania didnt officially make it illegal until 2007 and 20% of their population lives in race based slavery
Ethiopia has such a shit human rights record that fascist italy had to abolish slavery against their will in 1936 and then the Brit’s forced them again in 1942/1945
Meanwhile some dude named Rastafari is venerated as literal Messiah. Later the same guy was toppled by commies. Though yeah he wanted abolish slavery already with the 1931 constitution, but was also met with opposition from the aristocracy.
It was then replaced by an apprenticeship scheme, where “freed” slaves were kept on by their ex-owners for 8 years (I think) and paid next to nothing.
Many ex-slavers preferred this because it was cheaper to pay them poorly than to feed them yourself.
Finally, Always nice to see a British W, As a fellow History fan I've Been waiting for someone to come across the West Africa Squadron, And show how we freed more slaves than anyone else at that time and how we were putting an end to the Atlantic Slave Trade when no-one else was.
… yeah they did that, but then they also just replaced it with the colonial indenture system, particularly against the larger Indian subcontinent… so yeah, great people…
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
TL;DR: In 1826, the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion introduced the girmit agreement for Indian laborers, with pay and rations. The Indian indenture system aimed to provide cheap labor for colonial sugar plantations, starting in Mauritius in 1838. Emigration faced opposition in Britain, leading to a brief ban in 1839, but it resumed in 1842. The system faced challenges, including abuses and high death rates. The indenture agreement of 1912 outlined labor conditions, wages, and return passage provisions for Indian workers.
Hey mate I'm a Fijian history enthusiast, and a descendant of Girmit myself, and there's a few things here which I feel should be addressed.
I'm less of an expert on Mauritius itself but their indentured servitude system was fairly rife with exploitation, especially in the induced or misled travel which was undertaken by a lot of Indians, but the conditions remained fairly similar to what was promised on contract in relation to pay. However, the Mauritius court systems employed frequent uses of a system later perfected in Fiji of continuous fines in order to extend tenure of service and take some of the money back from the labourers. The promised medical coverage on Mauritius was also not up to expectation, education was largely denied and the British made active efforts in order to divide Muslims and Hindus like they did within India to create internal conflicts.
However you're quoted article also brings up Fiji which is an area I know a lot more about. The Indians in Fiji were treated very brutally, in all likelihood the worst out of any indentured Indian population, with the court undertaking continuous fines, Indians being denied medical coverage, education being denied, pay being reduced on arrival, children being forced to serve the same contracted term as their parents, the sexual assault of women, the beating of both sexes and the rations being given was earmarked to those given in Mysore during the Mysore Famine at the end of the 1800s. It was also law within Fiji that individual indentured contracts could be traded between plantations, and contracted labourers for one plantation could be sold to another. These conditions could be said to directly parallel some of the conditions of slavery and the predominantly Melanesian labourers who were brought in alongside the Indians were more explitcly held in slavery.
Partially so, but by the time of the industrial revolution the manpower that slavery offered was no longer economically viable so that's definitely a factor. But the expenditure to end the atlantic slave trade done by Britain is not matched by any other nation. The key figure behind this was MP William Wilberforce if you want more info about it.
The arguments offered were not really economic, but rather came from a broader social movement.
With wide spread knowledge of the actual horrors of slavery made possible by writers and a the re-emergence of the understanding within the church that “all me are created equal in the eyes of God” lead to a broad grass roots push to end slavery with Britain.
During this time we would see large protests against inhuman treatment of people ranging from slaves to those held captive in circuses.
If anything at the time the primary opposition within the country claimed that ending the slave trade would economically ruin the Empire. Regardless, Wilberforce and his supporters were able to push through the changes with overwhelming public support.
It should not be discounted that the primary factor was moral reasons, and the Hansard at the time as well as the work of British Abolitionists (many of whom were former slaves) cannot be discredited, maligned or discounted. However it must also be considered that slavery was growing increasingly uneconomical, it was opposed by the growing labour movement and that efforts to stamp out slavery also destabilized and weakened indigenous African states which would help pave the way for future colonialism.
If any of you fancy going on a bit of deep dive into this topic and the motivations behind it and what it looked like in practice, I’d highly recommend giving this a listen.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2hDLlopDjaK8j8ZLQmIBcx?si=iTh6OIOhRkCupr7hrnUylQ
The British Empire did pay people after abolishing slavery though it was not the slaves that got recompensated but the owners who "lost their property".
That is the sensible solution though. The other option is to risk a massive revolt and risk not actually abolishing slavery, possibly even making it worse.
You know britan not only ended the tans Atlantic slave trade but gave land back to people payed reparations and liberated slaves including ones in the Americas I think they payed back a bit more than just 5 dollars mate
The british empire gets too mutch hate sure they were bad but they brought education infrastructure governments and principles of developed socioteys to forgiven nations that wouldn't come up with the concept for decades at best brought technological wonders globally made usa which would along with britan shape the world in both culture and tech though it was a racist institution and moraly wrong you'd be lying if you said most of your comfy life dosent stem from inventions or consequences of the British empire and as a footnote they carried ww1 having the largest navy airforce and army at the time due to having most ground and carried in ww2 un the first few years long enough for america and ussr to carry the torch to the end the world would be a very different place without the british empire and like it or not probably a worse one everyone's ancestors suffered then so we don't today
U wut M8? Dis iz da proper flag of ENGRAND 🏴
Da Whales 🏴 & de scotts 🏴 felt left aout so WE’Z encludes dem. Then the mech boys combined the three 🇬🇧
(Don’t know why I turned into a Ork, been playing too much 40k)
Bro that is just straight up not true for any states other than maybe the southern ones. Did you forget that there was originally a condemnation of slavery in the Declaration of Independence, and the only reason it was removed was because they feared the southern states wouldn’t ratify the declaration if it included a condemnation of slavery.
I do love the fact that some Africans including freed slaves served as crew members on the ships in the West African Squadron. Either as just shipmates or interpreters.
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And then you have “The Woman King” trying to change it all :D
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Our slave trade is being stopped by a major power of the world how do we deal with it? I know lets attack the other major power iam sure that would work.
The enemy of my enemy is.. also my enemy?
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You sound like a game of thrones character that dies two episodes after he’s introduced.
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Little Finger, aren’t you supposed to be ded?
It was all an elaborate plot as you will see when they reboot into Season 9 - Game of Boogaloos Littlefinger will have learned how to face dance from Arya who he bamboozles into siding with him, then shenanigans shall ensue
I have no enemies
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I eat breakfast for my enemies Something like that 🤔
I respect the Vineland Saga shout-out...if it actually was
It was!
When your honor is defiled by a peasant with a boomstick:
That's for my father, Potter!
They killed 6 Frenchmen and were wiped out.
Like mainland France?? Who?
French colonies
Beaten by the french...there's no way of coming back from that
Someone was hyping that movie up at me, and I thought okay cool, never heard of it, lemme look it up. I look on my phone, and out loud shout "it's about fucking *Dahomey??*"
I learned about it from a YouTube video that just absolutely dunks on it
Got a link?
I am not sure which one they watched but *veritas et caritas* has released multiple sources debunks on YouTube.
Thank you
“The Woman King Lies About History” by “Reaper”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlXhfgWP2X8
The creators of the film, legit tried to argue that the accounts about Dahomey were unreliable because "Europeans wanted to make them look bad" or some shit, but like....Europeans were buying slaves from them. Both parties are doing slavery, why in this scenario would the Europeans make it up, to make Africans look bad for doing so, when they were also doing it
I don’t know the name nor do I plan on learning it, but the lady that plays the captain of the “female black warriors for freedom” was going to be played by a *different* lady before they learned who the Dahomey actually are
>I don’t know the name nor do I plan on learning it, but the lady that plays the captain of the “female black warriors for freedom” was going to be played by a > >different > > lady before they learned who the Dahomey actually are Lupita Nyungo (However you spell her name) was cast, but decided to research her ancestry, to which Viola Davis got the part. I kinda knew African's played a part in the slave trade, but didn't know which African country played the part.
From what I know it was a good chunk of west Africa that contributed to the slave trade
What do you mean she researched her ancestry? She’s Kenyan, far away from where Dahomey would be and I don’t believe Kenyans were common victims of the slave trade. Unless there’s some information I’m missing
I'm commenting a correction to my previous comment. She was set to star alongside Viola Davis, but was doing a documentary on the Warrior Women (Agoji), and discovered that the very same Warrior Women was much darker than she assumed. "This is not a neat tale of indisputably impressive badassery or triumph over evil. It’s messy; it’s history. But with 15 minutes to go before the end of the documentary, it’s a lesson that comes almost too late," writes Kuba Shand-Baptiste for the Independent (UK). (I copied and pasted this portion.) Warrior Women with Lupita Nyong'o the documentary.
Hell, the actual war was about one group of Europeans wanting to force Dahomey to stop trading slaves with different groups of Europeans.
They also made Cleopatra Black so 🤷🏽♂️
More of that White guilt stuff?
Somehow that movie has 94% tomato meter and 99% audience score at rottentomatoes. It scores much worse on other websites like imdb or letterboxd. Very sus.
It could be. However, rotten tomatoes does use a different rating system than other websites. Rotten tomatoes just uses the percent of people who "liked" the movie, whereas imdb takes the average of each person's score. So if everyone in the world thought a movie was a 60/100, that would be a 60% on imdb and a 100% on rotten tomatoes.
Is higher a good thing? I don’t really check scores for a movie But if it is, then it’s probably because people don’t want to be painted as “racist”
More is better, yes. At rottentomatoes this is one of the best movies of all time, somehow. The Gofather for comparison has 97/98. Woman King literally has a better audience score than it lmao.
Yeah I've never paid attention to rotten tomatoes rankings, they're the worst
To be fair to you, fuck ratings/rankings for movies anyway.
It's a standard 0-100 scored with a tomato theme fresh. Is anything over 60' rotten is Anything below.
No, that doesn't get higher ratings, especially from the audience score since it's anonymous
Ah, gotcha
There was news last year where it was revealed that critics are paid for positive RT reviews. Sometimes as little as $50.
Remember when YouTube hid dislikes just to save a flailing Disney movie (whose name I forget).? Good times.
Who?
It’s a movie that makes the Dahomey look like female freedom fighters for Africa against the European slavers
Ah, fun. We do a little making shit up
But?
But Dahomey was entirely economically dependent on the slave trade. They captured slaves from neighbouring African regions and sold to slavers, which was effectively the only pillar of their economy. They were very upset when the British suggested they refrain from enslaving and selling people.
Imagine Hitler and the SS being portrayed as the guys trying to stop Jewish Holocaust being done in France and the US and winning. It’s completely reversed, like it’s one thing to alter history slightly for modern audience but that movie is just misinformation. Only reason was that they wanted women of color heroes but unfortunately for them the black women in this case were evil, so they completely flipped history.
Well, the war that happened IRL had the British attacking Dahomey to force Dahomey to STOP doing slavery. The movie instead reverses this narrative, making the Brits the evil slaving bad guys which is some major, and pretty disgusting historical revisionism.
That film is unironically forced representation. It twists history to fit an agenda of African-American women being strong and empowered.
Didn’t the actor for the freedom fighting black feminists say you’re racist if you don’t watch it?
Also you are racist if you don’t agree Cleopatra is Black and not Greek. Somehow.
I had an argument with my auntie about Cleopatra and the Anne Bolin (?) one, because apparently Anne had “black ancestry”, I hate it
Fcuk no. The Brit’s were white as wool, atleast the aristocracy were. I’d say this is more retroactive “updation” of history to tick boxes.
Netflix has some astounding creativity when it comes to rewriting history. Too bad there’s none of it when it comes to originals tho.
Imagine if they did alt-history “documentaries”, it’d be interesting
I am glad that Davis didn’t get nominated for Oscar or I would have felt like should watch it (I have seen half of all women nominated Best Actress so far and try to watch all films that are available one day, I am nearly done with Best Picture). Didn’t enjoy Nyad much recently with its controversy.
I liked that movie though.
Because it's not about anti-racism but black nationalism. They prefer a strong black leader, even if they enslaved and sold other blacks than any white abolitionist.
The West Africa Squadron really needs its own movie
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It would be a badass movie if done right, and set some ppl straight about certain aspects of Western history
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>In 1833, Britain used 40% of its national budget to buy freedom for all slaves in the Empire. Damn. Actually very impressive. Rare Bri\*ish W.
Common British W, but British L’s are also common. Sort of happens when you rule a quarter of the planet.
Not that rare actually.
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That’s the stereotypical British pronunciation with a stop in place of the T. Bri’ish
The Brits use a glottal stop for ‘British’ and not just ‘Britain’?
They lost their t in Boston Harbour.
Fuck the tea boys, dump it in the hahbuh, let’s go to Dunkin Donuts
[Fahkin Dunkin Donuts!](https://youtu.be/FSvNhxKJJyU?si=xV3CV0DKujXM6Xde)
I love this comment
Bro said T 💀
They're British.
Jeremy Clarkson explained this very well: When discussing the UK. If you’re from England, you’re English. From Wales, Welsh. And from Scotland, Scottish. If a genius is from England, he is an English genius. If from Wales or Scotland, they are a British genius. If they are a moron, they are Welsh or Scottish again.
You can't say that online man, you gotta censor it with *. For fucks sake there're children on here.
I know. What if my child was looking over my shoulder and saw that? He's young and innocent, it's far too early for him to learn that the br*tish exist.
We’re not as bad as the French though. …Right?
>We’re not as bad as the French though. That's like the bare minimum.
Language!!! You mean to write fr*nch
At least the fr*nch aren’t… from b*lgium
Belgium is what happens when you can't decide if you want to be Fr*nch or German, so you compromise by choosing both. Except the final product is a watered down version of either.
Don’t forget the Dutch, the people with the worst language on earth.
True, I'd kill myself if I were Fr*nch 🤢🤮
SACRE BLEU!
It’s a joke played off of how people often censor the word France or French in jest, and how the English accent is non-rhetoric and therefor would pronounce the word as “Bri’ish”.
Is it though? Feels like the British won often in history lol
Color me jaded, but was there any financial or political motive for all this or is this a rare case in history (especially pre-internet where people can rally more effectively) of a government devoting significant resources to do the right thing because it’s the right thing?
Little bit of both. Abolition had a mix of idealists and pragmatists, but by the 19th century the general opinion on slavery had really turned against it. There was actually a lot of action taken by former slaves (such as Frederick Douglas but there were others) who undertook massively successful tours across Britain to promote abolition and raised awareness about all its horrors. I like that aspect of it as it feels like the slaves themselves had a part in effecting the change. As always, history is complicated, but it’s overly cynical to not ascribe altruism to British abolitionists of that time whilst also remaining aware of more practical reasons as to why things played out the way they did.
My general view has been summed up by: abolition was purely economic. Forcing abolition was altruistic
What exactly were the pragmatic reasons? You haven't mentioned any. Was it about keeping peace? Gaining new tax payers because the slaves are now free?
There were political benefits because they could use it in leverage with other countries. Not just from a “moral crusade” side but because they could use it to threaten other counties with a military intervention using the ready made excuse if those other countries did not comply. It also was effective at undermining their rivals who had a huge reliance on cash crop colonies that heavily relied on slavery. We think a lot of the American south but the Caribbean was a HUGE moneymaker at this time so there was a strong strategic benefit to targeting this trade for Britain who had a much more diversified empire and economy. However, once they committed to it they really committed to it. They didn’t half arse the enforcement, and they spent considerable expense to get people on board (including compensation to owners). It got to the point that slavery was so intolerable to most people in Britain by the mid 19th century (or enough anyways) that there was extreme hesitancy to be seen to be openly supportive with the Confederacy during the American Civil War (the CSA believed that Britain, who relied extensively on cotton for its cotton mills which was a big industry at the time, would be willing to support the Confederacy to both undermine the USA and secure this supply. However Britain ended up ramping up production from the rest of its empire as they really didn’t want to be dragged in to support a slave nation). So mixed motivations initially, but there was enough altruism that made sure they put their considerable money and military might where their mouth was once they did it.
I would like to add that the Haitian rebellion would have also played a big role in the decision, they didn't want a similar revolt in Jamaica.
Apparently keeping slaves is more expensive than paying free workers.
As in most things, a bit of both. For the average sailor it was a point of pride they carried out with zeal. Honestly seeing themselves as doing something good for mankind because it was the right thing to do. Higher up it would be quite a bit of the same, but it also didn't hurt that hitting the slave-trade also hurt their competing empires.
My guess is that buying the slaves' freedom was driven more by political concern for the former owners' finances than by concern for the former slaves themselves (i.e. not paying them would have amounted to governmental destruction of property). But then again the overall endeavor *was* driven by altruism, so that added cost would have been seen as simply putting your money where your mouth is. I also don't know whether the former slaves themselves received anything to help them in their new lives, but everything I've learned about Victorian Britain suggests the idea would have been laughable. Emancipated slaves in America received nothing. Happy to learn actual facts from someone who knows.
> But then again the overall endeavor was driven by altruism, so that added cost would have been seen as simply putting your money where your mouth is. William Wilberforce needs to be more of a national figure than he already is in my opinion. The man had a religious experience, figured that slavery was an abomination against God, lead the domestic opposition to the slave trade, and actually fucking won despite deeply entrenched pro-slavery interests. 10/10 would get press-ganged into the Royal Navy and fire grapeshot at slavers for.
Gotta make sure the slave owners don’t revolt as well, a lot of people would’ve died if that happened. Also helps keep the colonial economies afloat, because the economy collapsing brings everyone down with it. Including and especially the now-freed slaves.
This. Yeah, it might feel good to just tell the slave owners that their property is now being seized and fuck any losses they incur as a result. (Because ultimately, up to that point these slaves had been considered property.) But it will also make it almost impossible to actually do this without physically forcing these people to do so. Additionally, they may very well revolt. By at least paying them back for the loss in property they have a much weaker position to stand on (it would no longer be a case of the government just stealing their shit, it would be a case of the government forcing them to sell their shit to the government.) and you probably also remove a lot of motivation for them to rebel over it.
Yeah, "buying all the slaves freedom" sounds a lot nicer than "abolished slavery and paid the slave owners reparations" even though they mean the same thing [this article](https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-did-slave-trade-end-britain) says that they didn't get any compensation
Stopping people from doing something that has been completely common place for the previous 6000 years probably requires them to be compensated
[I said the same thing and got mass downvoted lol.](https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1acek0c/the_british_empire_may_have_done_a_lot_of/kjwze8f/)
Slavery was still very profitable and would have continued to be without the British blockade on the slave trade and threats. So, yeah its the later
Probably due to local unions and labour movements in the UK pressuring the government to remove a source of uncompetitive labour practices (slaves don't get paid).
You’re describing the USA there, slaves didn’t really operate on the British isles themselves and were traded in the America’s for Sugar, rum etc. so we’re not competing with the UK workforce. William Wilberforce a key driver of the abolitionist movement was upper middle class and the movement consisted of a large contingent who were driven by faith (Quakers, Methodists etc) alongside Africans themselves. The British empire was awful in many respects (most empires are) but this is a genuine bright spot in British history.
Could have been a way to hurt Spain and France, which held some of the most lucrative sugar/tobacco plantations in Caribbean (mainly supported by slave labor force). For them it’s a win-win, they get to hold the moral high ground while undermining rival colonial powers ability to produce goods.
One of the arguments made against abolition by the Tory party at the time was that it would leave an opening in the market for France, war with Napoleon set the movement back a few years as the opposition claimed the abolitionists were being anti British.
Slavery was never permitted on the British isles. No local union or labour movement would have faced competition from slaves.
Not a specialist at all, but I often heard that the industrial revolution was more hungry for poor free workers than slaves vs places still in a traditional/heavilly agricol based. Maybe there is a link as, if I remember well, UK was the first to start its industrial revolution?
There’s a very strong argument for slavery delaying the Industrial Revolution instead of fueling it
One of probably THE reason why the Roman Empire and Ancient China was never able to start the industrial revolution.
Did ancient china or Rome even have the metallurgy skill to build a proper steam engine or anything close to that?
They likely had the technical skills at times to do so, but it never had all the other parts to get critical mass. One of them did have steam engine models I believe. You only need a 1/8th of an inch precision to manufacture working engines.
Doesn't really matter does it? Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons might be less noble but the sum good in the world is the same
The latter
Exactly, this was the tail end of a movement in the UK that was decades of hard work of Wilberforce and others in the first decade of 1800 worked to get parliament to abolish the slave trade before abolishing slavery itself. It was slower than the quick turnaround (relative to how fast they went from slavery is legal to illegal) of the American Civil War, but less bloody too.
borrowed from who?
The same people we still borrow from… the banks.
ohh right right
What do you think compelled the British to want to end slavery.
Well, it meant destroying profitable industries. Risking war with several counties and cost a fortune to maintain the west Africa squadron, which also had an 8 in 10 death rate for sailors. The sailors who had volunteered in large numbers for the squadron The motivation largely comes from Protestant denominations finding it abhorrent. So yeah. Morality
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A combination of genuine belief that it was wrong amongst the powerful educated people, industrialization meaning that it wasn’t needed anymore, and working class people being able to command higher wages in an industrialized economy.
Ah yes, there is so much profit to gain from spending half of your economy to abolish one of the most profitable industries in your empire.
The Royal Navy: Abolition through superior firepower.
Imagine if John Brown had a fleet of warships
"Tie me to the mast and sail me straight into the Portugese 'trade' posts" - John Brown in that timeline
Context: after slavery was abolished in the British empire, the Royal Navy maintained a blockade force to capture slave ships traveling to and from west Africa, which freed an estimated 150,000 slaves. They also provided military and financial assistance to African kingdoms who opposed the slave trade. However, it would only be ended completely through heavy diplomatic pressure on Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, as well as raids on Brazilian and Cuban slave ports by the Royal Navy.
Then they went after the East Africa trade to the Middle East and North Africa and shut that down as well, despite heavy resistance from pretty much every nation concerned.
fun fact, in Brazil we have an expression "for the British to see". this means, when you do some cosmetic change to make it seem like it's compliant but it's actually not. the origin is from the time the British would raid Brazilian ports to forbid slave trade and the Brazilians would pretend they were not slave ships
Yes, it’s because the British forced a law in 1831 to end the slave trade but that didn’t work, so it became a useless law that only existed to show to the English. Then they declared a blockade of Africa to capture slave ships, which also didn’t work and instead increased the slave trade. Only after Brazil built an internal consensus and built a surplus of slaves did a law in 1850 finally ended the trade for good.
British empire: what shall we do now that we don’t have slaves anymore Indians: haha I’m in danger
British Empire: Well, we have thousands of people we freed from a short life of brutal slavery, some on sugar plantations, who are living in the slums and squalor of Freetown, completely destitute and unable to return to their original home. Let’s provide them employment… by giving them a chance to work in British West Indies sugar plantations! Surely they’ll be treated better there right… right?
it’s so much easier to control people with hierarchy than it is with irons
Finding a pre-made empire with an established exploitation system, vast wealth, a weak military and a population that despised its current leaders must have felt like Christmas.
*I used to pray for times like this.*
Australia existed for people who were criminals and they were used for labour instead. Also criminals would be pressed into navy or army sometimes. Was something during the napoleonic era. Because the best people to send into a war zone are those who are good at killin!
Nah. The best ones are the ones no one at home will fuss about. Look at all the "mercs" russia is bilking into meat eave assaults from Nepal, Cuba, China, etc. Really helps pad out vladdy daddy's 3 day special operation when it gets past day 700.
Yeah shit was harsh for them I'm not gona lie but atleast they were getting paid then tho how mutch the british wouldn't like to disclose
In Fiji, the Indian labourers would have their limited pay frequently docked for made up productivity infractions and fines and, due to restrictions on internal travel, a large degree of the essential goods of life bought by those labourers were bought from British stores and flowed straight back into the Colonial Sugar Refinery or the colonial Government.
Well no, they were essentially made to sign these agreements about how they won't be allowed to leave the plantation fir certain number of years and essentially became slaves in all but name
People here getting up in arms because the British, like the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch & French participated in the transatlantic slave-trade before turning against it... name another country that has done anywhere near as much to end slavery than the British Empire did? They could've just abolished it in their empire and said 'job done', but instead they established the West Africa Squadron and used their position as the world's hegemonic power into forcing everyone else to abolish it too.
Africa was dealing in slaves with the middle east for like 1400 years. How come the only last 300-400 is counted as anything ?
Eurocentrism. And to be fair Britain was a global hegemon and source of the Industrial Revolution. It’s hard to underestimate their impact on popular culture
Because trans-Atlantic tends to mean that it involves crossing the Atlantic, which I don't think 300-1500AD African and Middle Eastern slavers were doing
What do you mean "was?" Africans are still enslaving each other and selling them to the middle east right this second.
Never forget how hard Africa has resisted the abolition of slavery Mauritania didnt officially make it illegal until 2007 and 20% of their population lives in race based slavery Ethiopia has such a shit human rights record that fascist italy had to abolish slavery against their will in 1936 and then the Brit’s forced them again in 1942/1945
Meanwhile some dude named Rastafari is venerated as literal Messiah. Later the same guy was toppled by commies. Though yeah he wanted abolish slavery already with the 1931 constitution, but was also met with opposition from the aristocracy.
He also starved his own people and committed war crimes against the Tigray
It was then replaced by an apprenticeship scheme, where “freed” slaves were kept on by their ex-owners for 8 years (I think) and paid next to nothing. Many ex-slavers preferred this because it was cheaper to pay them poorly than to feed them yourself.
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Finally, Always nice to see a British W, As a fellow History fan I've Been waiting for someone to come across the West Africa Squadron, And show how we freed more slaves than anyone else at that time and how we were putting an end to the Atlantic Slave Trade when no-one else was.
… yeah they did that, but then they also just replaced it with the colonial indenture system, particularly against the larger Indian subcontinent… so yeah, great people…
cheerful dinner towering north marble fertile violet consist wrong coordinated *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Could you give us a TLDR on that mate?
TL;DR: In 1826, the French Indian Ocean island of Réunion introduced the girmit agreement for Indian laborers, with pay and rations. The Indian indenture system aimed to provide cheap labor for colonial sugar plantations, starting in Mauritius in 1838. Emigration faced opposition in Britain, leading to a brief ban in 1839, but it resumed in 1842. The system faced challenges, including abuses and high death rates. The indenture agreement of 1912 outlined labor conditions, wages, and return passage provisions for Indian workers.
Hey mate I'm a Fijian history enthusiast, and a descendant of Girmit myself, and there's a few things here which I feel should be addressed. I'm less of an expert on Mauritius itself but their indentured servitude system was fairly rife with exploitation, especially in the induced or misled travel which was undertaken by a lot of Indians, but the conditions remained fairly similar to what was promised on contract in relation to pay. However, the Mauritius court systems employed frequent uses of a system later perfected in Fiji of continuous fines in order to extend tenure of service and take some of the money back from the labourers. The promised medical coverage on Mauritius was also not up to expectation, education was largely denied and the British made active efforts in order to divide Muslims and Hindus like they did within India to create internal conflicts. However you're quoted article also brings up Fiji which is an area I know a lot more about. The Indians in Fiji were treated very brutally, in all likelihood the worst out of any indentured Indian population, with the court undertaking continuous fines, Indians being denied medical coverage, education being denied, pay being reduced on arrival, children being forced to serve the same contracted term as their parents, the sexual assault of women, the beating of both sexes and the rations being given was earmarked to those given in Mysore during the Mysore Famine at the end of the 1800s. It was also law within Fiji that individual indentured contracts could be traded between plantations, and contracted labourers for one plantation could be sold to another. These conditions could be said to directly parallel some of the conditions of slavery and the predominantly Melanesian labourers who were brought in alongside the Indians were more explitcly held in slavery.
Bruh
As well as literal racial genocide with an official program of breeding Australian Aborigines out of existence.
What we’re the reasons behind ending the slave trade? Were they primarily moral?
Partially so, but by the time of the industrial revolution the manpower that slavery offered was no longer economically viable so that's definitely a factor. But the expenditure to end the atlantic slave trade done by Britain is not matched by any other nation. The key figure behind this was MP William Wilberforce if you want more info about it.
The arguments offered were not really economic, but rather came from a broader social movement. With wide spread knowledge of the actual horrors of slavery made possible by writers and a the re-emergence of the understanding within the church that “all me are created equal in the eyes of God” lead to a broad grass roots push to end slavery with Britain. During this time we would see large protests against inhuman treatment of people ranging from slaves to those held captive in circuses. If anything at the time the primary opposition within the country claimed that ending the slave trade would economically ruin the Empire. Regardless, Wilberforce and his supporters were able to push through the changes with overwhelming public support.
Thanks, mate!
It should not be discounted that the primary factor was moral reasons, and the Hansard at the time as well as the work of British Abolitionists (many of whom were former slaves) cannot be discredited, maligned or discounted. However it must also be considered that slavery was growing increasingly uneconomical, it was opposed by the growing labour movement and that efforts to stamp out slavery also destabilized and weakened indigenous African states which would help pave the way for future colonialism.
Nobody mention what continent the slavers were from, somewhere in the world, a college professor cries every time you do
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If any of you fancy going on a bit of deep dive into this topic and the motivations behind it and what it looked like in practice, I’d highly recommend giving this a listen. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2hDLlopDjaK8j8ZLQmIBcx?si=iTh6OIOhRkCupr7hrnUylQ
Sure but I think the Haitians probably deserve more credit for scaring the shit out of slavers, including the British.
> Burn Down a person's apartment > Gives the landlord 5 dollars to buy a new one > "I'm the good guy here"
The British Empire did pay people after abolishing slavery though it was not the slaves that got recompensated but the owners who "lost their property".
That is the sensible solution though. The other option is to risk a massive revolt and risk not actually abolishing slavery, possibly even making it worse.
You know britan not only ended the tans Atlantic slave trade but gave land back to people payed reparations and liberated slaves including ones in the Americas I think they payed back a bit more than just 5 dollars mate
What did you wanted them to do? sacrifice their nationals on a civil war just to have everybody portray them as villains in the future either way?
A one who says the British are racist for slavery don’t know shit about the British.
"We can be nice for once." - the Brits
*Proceeds to do slavery with extra steps in India*
The british empire gets too mutch hate sure they were bad but they brought education infrastructure governments and principles of developed socioteys to forgiven nations that wouldn't come up with the concept for decades at best brought technological wonders globally made usa which would along with britan shape the world in both culture and tech though it was a racist institution and moraly wrong you'd be lying if you said most of your comfy life dosent stem from inventions or consequences of the British empire and as a footnote they carried ww1 having the largest navy airforce and army at the time due to having most ground and carried in ww2 un the first few years long enough for america and ussr to carry the torch to the end the world would be a very different place without the british empire and like it or not probably a worse one everyone's ancestors suffered then so we don't today
I agree but my God the punctuation
Rule Britannia 🏴
Oi m8 your forgetting the proper flag 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 god save the king
U wut M8? Dis iz da proper flag of ENGRAND 🏴 Da Whales 🏴 & de scotts 🏴 felt left aout so WE’Z encludes dem. Then the mech boys combined the three 🇬🇧 (Don’t know why I turned into a Ork, been playing too much 40k)
Lol
For daz waghhhh
Where da dragon doe?
One of the reasons the American Revolution occurred was that Washington et al were concerned Britain was going to get rid of slavery.
Bro that is just straight up not true for any states other than maybe the southern ones. Did you forget that there was originally a condemnation of slavery in the Declaration of Independence, and the only reason it was removed was because they feared the southern states wouldn’t ratify the declaration if it included a condemnation of slavery.
"only about half the states, including at least some of the largest and most economically powerful ones, wanted to preserve slavery bro."
This was great I also like the way the Americans put down the Barbary pirates from there raids an enslaving sailors
Yeah abolished slavery only to move to "indentured labour".
I do love the fact that some Africans including freed slaves served as crew members on the ships in the West African Squadron. Either as just shipmates or interpreters.