In the late 1800's and early 1900's, 30,000 Jewish migrants from Russia and Eastern Europe settled in Manchester. Eventually, 11,000 separate British slave-trading expeditions resulted in the trafficking of three-and-a-half-million Africans to the New World plantations, the greatest forced migration in modern history until the 20th century. Davids all done. Hes welcome to pursue his line of thought but he should bear in mind that tolerance is, by its nature, in the gift of the powerful. "So when black history was missing - the history of empire, the history of slavery - was missing from my history lessons, I didn't have a place to go to discover those missing chapters. His book is a product of that childhood terror, and partly an exploration of his condition as a black Briton. But those were in those long-lost days when democrats and republicans could talk to each other and agree to disagree while both leaving the conversation a little the wiser.. In 1787, they met in London and set up the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. I assume these were usually killed before Europeans turned up and bought them. In America few were castrated, which is why there are now >40 million descendants there. Both of these need proof. It has been reissued by publishing house Hodder and Prof Olusoga has written the foreword. No. Then the adult men became profitable too. There are probably a thousand organisations, charities and assorted grifters who would happily cash your cheque. He was a prominent figure in the campaign to abolish slavery. (Im just presenting the case here in reality there are obviously some big questions about the logic of Nuremberg etc, just as there are questions about how judges in Common Law occasionally summon up things as if they had always and forever been a part of the Law, albeit previously unrecorded, rather than something the judge just made up.). I still find arguing the toss, or watching others doing so, interesting partly because it shows how the viewpoints are divergent, how many arguments are self-interested, what social, cultural and economic forces are at work behind it all. Theres probably more mileage in my country, or at least its historical incarnation, fought against it because unlike the actual people involved, the state is still around. I do not see what is different between a plantation in Africa and a plantation in Virginia. But that ignores how the demand of outsiders led inevitably to far more supply being provided. That may have caused more violence. Its very noticable how nobodys mentioning that the Spanish Empire were doing this for several centuries before the British got involved. Peter Pan & Wendy is a live-action reimagining of the J.M . I hadnt gotten far when she stopped me cold, pointing out that her best friend, a 15 year old girl knitting beside a window in her house, was machine gunned by an American P-51 pilot. No one has said we should not consider someone elses viewpoint. As a nation, we still have only a dim understanding of the slave system that funded Sloanes collecting. What would happen to that money, who knows, but as its (or was) your money, thats between you and your grifter of choice. Theres no point pretending Europeans who profited from either the transatlantic slave trade or the use of slave labour in the Americas were somehow doing a favour to the slaves involved. Then dont discuss it. "They look to history not just for inspiration and comfort, not just for heroes and for glorious chapters; they look for history expecting to find challenging stories, painful stories, dark truths, villains as well as heroes. The rest apart from Ireland (17, partly due to influence of aforementioned Patrick) set it younger. Well whats the point of pretending it doesnt also induce moral disgust in me, just in case someone mistakes it for guilt, or an admission of liability? In 1986 I came across the book Staying Power by the British journalist Peter Fryer. She wasnt interested in my academic pursuit. It was the first of the slave narratives that I'd ever read and I found it astonishing.". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr_Gide, Less flippantly, Western countries are not of one mind when it comes to the age of consent sex with a 14 year-old is legal in some countries, criminal in others (yes yes, paedophilia versus ephebophilia etc, you got me). There is no reason to think that slavery was nicer in Africa. Particularly as nowadays anyone who dares even look at someone a few days below the age of consent is believed to be an incorrigible nonce who deserves hanging, castration, or castration by hanging. It may have made sense for the SS to starve labourers to death. It isnt going to happen anyway. It may not. Even did something positive. I am happy with Olusogo paying reparations to himself. Get back to us when your sin/privilege is expunged. There is no reason to single White people out for unique levels of criticism. The strongest argument I can see for reparations is not that white people bear some kind of ancestral blame. Support 100 years of independent journalism. Maybe someone should advise him to button his lip before he stirs up something he may not like. Would, say, Huguenot-descended South Africans suing France over the 1572 St. Bartholomews Day massacre, or Cornish people suing HMG for the suppression of the 1497 Rebellion, deserve compensation?. That assumes an increase in demand. Within the EU the two most common ages of consent are 14 and 15 (if Ive done my counting correctly), though in some but not all cases thats with additional restrictions on permissible age gaps. Check out the trailer for Peter Pan & Wendy, an upcoming live-action movie directed by David Lowery. If you want to pay more tax, just write a cheque to HMRC and send it off. Thats what I dont like about the angle of Tims header. But you need a different approach if you dont think great-grandkids of the Confederacy are still fair game.) White people will take it. I cant see this one surviving people being expected to dig into their pockets for a few trillion. Certainly they killed them casually often for religious reasons. Nevertheless, we live in a society that generally regards slavery as an absolute and eternal wrong, and a grave one at that, yet which has historically (at least certain people and places, and including the state itself) benefited from imposing slavery on others. White people are unique in ending slavery across the world*. Both groups today, especially the former, could reasonably claim historic persecution has reduced their present income and wealth. Anybody can do this. Olusoga unloads all sorts of characterizations. "I first read it as a student and it struck me as something that was very different to other things I was reading about the Atlantic slave trade. But morals are very transient things. One of his teachers had a coffee mug bearing a National Front slogan and another attacked him during a school trip, he said. But as someone who is damaged by slavery I have lived in racially mixed communities and I am happy to see Obama and Kamala pay up. Read about our approach to external linking. Shipwrecked off the coast of Africa, he, and other survivors, were taken by an African tribe as captives. Although I would expect the Germans, and perhaps even the Japanese, to be happy they lost the war. John Mandeville, whose travelogue (circa 1356) was one of the most widely translated books of the later Middle Ages, presented Africans as naked savages living amid heaps of gold to which they gave no value. His choice of subject and his choice of material make that very clear. Shouldnt Olusoga be writing in Ubangi bantu-language? David will . Tull played professional football for Northampton but instead of signing up for Glasgow Rangers, he enlisted. Olusogas ancestors will have participated in the capture of sale of slaves in Nigeria. Their cities, as well as their comfort, will rapidly decay. Ironically, one of the sources we can turn to in order to learn more is his own accounts of late 17th-century Jamaica. Used to be on a long-dead and much missed forum where the topics of debate ranged far wider than they do here (as did the viewpoints I think it would be useful if us right-wing brexity mob didnt chase off the sensible non-right-wing non-brexity types so much). If you had spare cash or could borrow, investment in slavery was a sure winner, never mind slave rebellions or hurricanes that destroyed cane fields. He was born in Nigeria but arrived in the . Re putting the argument for paedophilia they actually gave Gide the Nobel prize for literature didnt they? The point about slave descendants in Georgia being better off than descendants of slave sellers from West Africa is reasonably strong (though look back in everyones ancestry and youre likely to find, far back enough, a mix of slaves, owners and probably traders too). Well the universe has a law of gravity but it doesnt have a law of should there be reparations. The government has said the "flexibility within the history curriculum means that there is the opportunity for teachers to teach about BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) history across a spectrum of themes and eras" so it did "not believe it was necessary to change the curriculum". (Britain expended blood and treasure on ending the slave trade, and thereby paid its moral debt already is one way of trying to resolve it, but rather unsatisfactory at righting the wrongs done to those who had already fallen victim to the trade.) Get back to us when youve developed your historicalguiltometer. We do not know how great the demand for women was. If you are wracked with guilt, ashamed of your forebears, do it! It's against this backdrop that Black British History Month was created. And Britain worked for the whole of the 19th century to put down slavery in Africa. (and white people was pretty much the British). Britain should be proud of helping to stop (African to America) slavery, like the Republican Party and unlike the Democrats. Arguably wrong in a crimes against humanity way (similar language of natural justice and universal morality indeed being used by the abolitionists and the UK itself when it tried to enforce a ban on the trade) that made it inherently illegal even when governments tried to put it on a legal footing. My argument is that Africans were probably happily killing each other for women before the West turned up. it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them Of course if a rule was instituted that only people with white skins had to pay taxes, it might happen. This is because forgetting slavery means forgetting its victims. Tim says there might be some truth to them for the Caribbean. We pretend we do not like slavery but actually we do not like slave traders. Note, hes a renowned economist. A renowned economist has said that $12 trillion should be afforded to black Americans in reparation for slavery to help the close wealth gap.. One in which enslaved people suffered and even died from malnutrition, as the economics of the slave trade meant that it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them than it was to provide them with food. Fuck right off As a winning debating strategy. The historian and producer said he wanted to. Societies have had a long history of treating minorities harshly. Olusoga brilliantly reveals such contradictions in British society. Nineteen eighty-four affected him in another way: the publication of Peter Fryers groundbreaking Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain introduced him to the scholarship needed to understand his position in Britain. It was an apt university to experiment with such developments, since Lord Scarman, who reported on the Brixton riots of 1981, was its chancellor. Thats before you get on to the Khoisan and the Zulus, the Carthaginians and Romans, the Vikings versus pretty much anyone else who lived within raiding distance, Theres a fundamental weakness with all theories of universal law or justice, which is that across time and space, the human conception of what is right and just seems to be extremely varied and rarely (to modern Western eyes) pleasant. History is just one awful thing after another. Fair point. Latin America for instance. For almost 60 years, there was impasse. Why are these characterizations needed? Sure. This history of the black presence in . David Olusoga We are told that an estimated 12.5 million slaves were shipped from Africa to the West Indies and elsewhere in the 18th century. Very little sugar on the mainland. . Obama had none. In the system that made Sloane wealthy, black women sought out herbs, plant species that he carefully identified and categorised, and used them to induce abortions, determined as many were not to bring into the world children who would be born items of property and destined to live short, brutalised lives. If their ancestors had remained in Africa would they be better off than they are now? By this logic, we ought to sue the African American community. No doubt life expectancy of a slave was shorter than that for a free man. Now sixteen sounds about okay to me if youre going to stick a limit somewhere, but then being British I suppose Im more likely to think the system Im accustomed to is normal and reasonable. Do I feel like I had anything to do it? at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too.. Should black history be taught all year round? But oddly enough, people like Olusoga havent given me the cash yet. The Russians do not have these problems because they are not ashamed. Olusoga, who presents the BBC documentary series A House Through Time, told presenter Lauren Laverne that racism was "just the background hum of life" when he was growing up. He was immersed in it. But werent they lucky compared to the other Germans in Stalingrad? The UK, Norway, Benelux, Spain, Malta and Switzerland are, I believe, the only western European countries to set it at 16. And any reparations should be paid 50% by the African states for the areas which sold the slaves and pocketed the proceeds. The best and brightest minds in the UK defended Stalins slavery. I imagine few do. Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong. So is Richard Murphy. He is the author of the 2016 book Black and British: A Forgotten History, which was awarded both the Longman-History Today Trustees Award 2017 and the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2017. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. That was when the Democrats were still Americans. Peter completed his award-winning PhD, exploring stress and coping in elite sports coaching, at Sheffield Hallam in 2012. Not sure how sick this makes me. And they will go looking for parts of the past that aren't on the curriculum, and they evidently do. Dont even get me started on the Moors, Arabs and Ottomans, As for getting rich many African tribes kept slaves and their societies did not get rich. He saw how enslaved people who had risen up were burnt to death, castrated or mutilated, punishments he regarded as merited. Video1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. Would the good professor really be so different if genealogical records could prove he had African ancestors who owned African slaves? As would Beyonce. During the Second World War, thousands of black American soldiers stationed in Britain were befriended by white Britons who opposed efforts by the white military to segregate them. I was uncomfortable using it. . The problem with slavery is that it left us with their descendents and weak minded White populations. arguments are pretty weak since relying on a doctrine of virtues of the fathers risks implicitly accepting sins of the fathers.. The book accompanying. Forbes magazine's extraordinarily arrogant contributor Tim Worstall Jeremy Corbyn. I have a peeve about the BBC genealogical show Who do you think you are? which I dont know whether has been inflected upon the Left Pond. In the 15th and 16th centuries, thousands of pounds of gold were shipped to Europe. You might have heard of a Romano-British chap called Patrick, got enslaved and nabbed to Ireland? The reason why Equiano is not a national name is because slavery is not a part of the history that we teach when it should be because I don't think you can understand the 18th century in particular but also the 19th century without reference to slavery.". Sugar plantations were bad. That is not true. Inflaming the reader has no purpose relative to slavery. Dont know if I would rule it out entirely because the demographics are different but it might need a change in the voting dynamics. Africans had a demand for female slaves. Ill disparage them. Separated from home and family and landed in the West Indies (countless numbers dying of suffocation during the journey, given that the people traffickers were packing the holds to maximise profits), the Africans had no recourse to the law, much less the conscience of their captors. The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. Prof David Olusoga has presented numerous documentaries including A House Through Time and Black and Black and British: A Forgotten History, Olaudah Equiano played a role in Britain's abolishment of slavery, Performer Giles Terera has written a play featuring Equiano, Prof Olusoga said when it was published, people did not believe the book was by an African as it was deemed so well written, Bernardine Evaristo (second left) has launched a series called Black Britain: Writing Back which features novels by black British authors that have been overlooked, Should black history be taught all year round? Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. I know. Slaves were crowded in a new environment with new diseases. They deliberately bought skewed mostly male gender balance. David then moved with his mother and three siblings in the north-east of the UK. But any planter who deliberately starved his slaves to death would quickly go bust. The system he witnessed and wrote about was one in which human beings were worked to death. Olusoga has benefited from and added significantly to the work of Fryer and other historians such as James Walvin. In the end, wholl be proven right about the matter practically, in terms of what the outcome is and what the first drafts of history say? MBE, do not entertain these people, not for one second. If we went down this route thered be goodness knows how much fun and games to be had with legal claims over the treatment of Irish by Cromwell, the clearing of the Highlands and so on, before you even get on to the globe-spanning imperial stuff. Would, say, Huguenot-descended South Africans suing France over the 1572 St. Bartholomews Day massacre, or Cornish people suing HMG for the suppression of the 1497 Rebellion, deserve compensation? ), Who is fundamentally right about reparations for slavery? "We are on a journey in this country and other countries are on similar journeys to try and reconnect to parts of our history that had traditionally been edited out," adds Prof Olusoga. Its a shame Cotton was a completely different slave economy. Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade is part of the national curriculum, although it is not statutory. That was a bad experience but he should know that you cannot judge a whole country by what happened when he was young. Everyone was. Grew up in Quedlinburg. Abolition was the first mass philanthropic movement in Britain, and it ended the slave trade in 1807. Maybe Europeans did increase demand. 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