Black And British: A Forgotten History

[vetuste_ennemi]

Anybody been watching this series on BBC4?

Watched the second episode ("Freedom" - it was about the slave trade and emancipation) last night. Surprised (not for the first time) by how many things I didn't know and wouldn't have guessed at.

Good viewing. There on iPlayer if you haven't seen it

[bainbrig]

You mean (for instance) the fact that the British government financially compensated British slaveowners for their loss of property? I was somewhat amazed to hear there were clergymen on the list of beneficiaries.

Also the growing suggestion that the motivation for abolition was as much the decline in sugar prices as much as moral abhorrence.

[mushroom25]

not just compensated, BB, but the amount it involved - in real terms - was staggering. a modern equivalent would be in the region of £15billion, and the loan the government had to take out to cover it wasn't paid off until 2015.

[vetuste_ennemi]

No, it didn't discuss the details of abolition, guys.

A "didn't know" was that the British offered freedom to slaves who fought on our side in the Revolutionary War. A "wouldn't have guessed that" was that, having lost the war, the promise was honoured and some considerable number of slaves were brought back to England.

Then there was Sierra Leone. We've all heard of Liberia, but I've not heard of the "settlement" of emancipated slaves in that other place.

[bainbrig]

mushroom: plus ca bleedin’ change, eh? (Thinking of the most recent bale out of the banks).

As usual, the rulers play their trick of getting the innocent to pay the guilty’s bill.

[Old_Geezer]

No one was guilty unless they continued after something was officially declared wrong.

Some folk are so keen on judging the past by today's rules. May they understand that some in future generations will make the same error and declare them scum of the Earth also.

[bainbrig]

Not a sound argument, Geezer. Treating people badly is an evil, whether it is proclaimed so or not.

[vetuste_ennemi]

On the subject I was raising in the OP, Bainbrig, do you know anything about the history of slavery?

[bainbrig]

Rhetorical, or are you really asking? If you're asking, and I have me doubts, then yes, I know a lot about the history of slavery, but I see it in a wider context of the economics and politics of the involved countries.

As for your specific question, yes, I have recorded/watched the various programmes on slavery broadcast over the past year or so, but it wasn't from them that I learnt about slavery - they just added to my understanding of it.