They included Josiah Wedgwood (the pottery entrepreneur), Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson. Ironically, one of the sources we can turn to in order to learn more is his own accounts of late 17th-century Jamaica. The best and brightest minds in the UK defended Stalins slavery. It costs money to replace them and after a famine the price of slaves would rise. Obama had none. A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. Writing in english is cultural appropriation so STFU. The problem with slavery is that it left us with their descendents and weak minded White populations. 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). is that the extra demand distorted the market, led directly to more armed slave-raiding expeditions against rival tribes and so on.. Was never entirely sure which bits were believed and which bits were just a fun bit of intellectual muscle-flexing couldnt all have been intended seriously since so many posts contradicted each other. Dr Peter Olusoga is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology. It has been reissued by publishing house Hodder and Prof Olusoga has written the foreword. His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, details how he was sold into slavery aged 11, his experience of travelling the world as slave to a Royal Navy officer - who renamed him Gustavus Vassa - and how he bought his freedom from his final master, an English merchant in Montserrat. Those aged 11-14 have to be taught about the British Empire between 1745-1901, however the slave trade is one of nine examples given by the Department of Education on what can be taught. Probably few other societies had as much chance of buying freedom. Just as how in the 16th century the anti-slavery voices in Europe were overwhelmed, and in the 19th century the abolitionists won out. Not to say it was nice. I dont think the traders can be given a pass on this front either., Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong.. In the USA? Tull played professional football for Northampton but instead of signing up for Glasgow Rangers, he enlisted. Full text must be online somewhere but theres an extract at https://www.history.co.uk/shows/the-real-vikings/articles/eyewitness-to-the-vikings. 7 years was the average working lifespan so it is said. "They're not looking to history only to make them feel good and give them comfort, but they're looking to history to tell them things about truths about their society that we have traditionally edited out of British history.". As he states, The oral history of 20th-century racial violence has never been collected or collated, but it is thereand it is shocking.. Like the Nigerian slavers who enslaved and sold the slaves, you mean? Wrong ?!?! 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. It seems absurd to me that anyone should be concerned about what happened 200 or 500 years ago. Its an interesting exercise to consider, given we live within such a system, how or whether that contradiction can be settled. Of course if a rule was instituted that only people with white skins had to pay taxes, it might happen. 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. One of the reasons why the American and Caribbean experiences were very different. You lost those two. Sure. People seem pretty much agreed on what is right and what is wrong. Inflaming the reader has no purpose relative to slavery. How does it benefit anyone to make an issue about particular events? Quite possibly slave-raiding Gaels before that. And yet anti-black race riots broke out in 1948 in Liverpool and in 1958 in Nottingham and Londons Notting Hill. We do not know for sure. Theres an argument about judging people by the standard of their times, though even in the 1500s moral and religious objections to the slave trade had been made and the rationale of crimes against humanity is that some things are so abhorrent they could never truly be legal no matter what moral code the perpetrators justified themselves with. If slavery really mattered theyd be campaigning for reparations from the blacks and arabs/moslems who were doing it long before the white man arrived in Africa and was far more devastating. He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. The answer is money. And, of course, being half white, he is only entitled to half the reparation payment. Not a big fan of the odd human sacrifice Im afraid, even though I might just be of very partial Scandinavian descent myself. Definitely didnt die out with the Romans. To me personally, this is the thing. I was doing some genealogy research when I discovered my great grandfather was a well known member of the 18th Kentucky Infantry. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, 30,000 Jewish migrants from Russia and Eastern Europe settled in Manchester. Get back to us when youve developed your historicalguiltometer. It was such a brilliantly organised programme of mass protest that slavery was declared abolished in 1833: 46,000 slave owners were given 20m in compensation (17bn in todays money), the largest payout in British history and 40 per cent of all government spending that year. 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. Married an American GI after the war. Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates. Slavery within West African societies being different again I dont think the places with very high rates of local slavery were anything like the sugar plantations. Youre right, MBE. If someone from Portugal or France wants to explain why their country has done a better job of getting the balance right, Im open to hearing it. It died out with the Romans leaving, and its non-legality repeatedly reaffirmed from the reign of the early Normans onwards. That someone did something 200 years ago means double ought nothing.. They all get it from White people inciting violence. H istorian and broadcaster David Olusoga has been the face of a decolonial turn in British broadcasting that, in recent years, with series including the Bafta-winning Britain's Forgotten Slave. This year, return to Neverland. It could not have happened at all unless African traders and kings had offered slaves to the Europeans. Intellectually more convincing anyway for practical and political purposes, demolishing a straw-man often makes a better video or audio clip while simultaneously making your opponents position sound stupid. The historian tells Michael Segalov about getting up early, reading George Orwell, taking his dog George for a walk, playing his guitar Peter completed his award-winning PhD, exploring stress and coping in elite sports coaching, at Sheffield Hallam in 2012. My great, great, grandfather was one. My family did nothing. So how much have considered paedophilia? Even discussing it gives your opponents arguments merit. They organised a boycott of sugar, produced more petitions and hosted meetings. That involved killing the adult men. The rest apart from Ireland (17, partly due to influence of aforementioned Patrick) set it younger. It happened. 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. Your email address will not be published. . The enslaved Africans had to wait another five years for their freedom and were not given a penny. Olusoga is making an appeal to white guilt. Surely the US has already spent much more than that on black Americans. Oh man. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. If Olusoga is looking for apologies or compensation for slavery, I am quite prepared to meet him, accept his apology, togehr with cash, cheque or even a postal order. It wasnt always so & it may not be in the future. Or anything to do with slavery. The strongest argument I can see for reparations is not that white people bear some kind of ancestral blame. The arguments do you want to get shaken down for several trillion?. The Sokoto Caliphate probably had as many slaves and a lot fewer free men as the Old South. The many African-American abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, who visited Britain from the 1840s onwards, were well received and, again, thousands of people greeted them and raised money to support their cause. 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. I generally reckon cant blame me, my distant relative was on your side arguments are pretty weak since relying on a doctrine of virtues of the fathers risks implicitly accepting sins of the fathers. His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. Indeed in many cases, whose ancestors didnt even live in France or England at the relevant time. The good news is that Black Lives Matter may be that trigger. 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. But you need a different approach if you dont think great-grandkids of the Confederacy are still fair game.) No one has said we should not consider someone elses viewpoint. Later his parents separated from each other when he was just two years old. So he calls himself a Geordie. Sure. He seems to be an interesting social historian and his TV series on the occupants of a single house over the centuries is very good, although I suspect a lot of the research is done by others, I look forward to an even handed expose of the entire slave trade from birth to capture, imprisonment, sale, transportation, arrival, sale, treatment and life while enslaved as well as the UKs role in stopping it, But it wont be on the BBC, and he wont be writing it I fear, @smfs Over 150 years in America. I do not see what is different between a plantation in Africa and a plantation in Virginia. Like I need to hand my cash to the next lass of Rus descent I see, lest she remind me of some unlucky slave-girl that may or may not have perished at the hands of my maybe-ancestors? Would also apply even if down a different family line there had been beneficiaries of the slave trade. As Black British History Month draws to a close, TV historian Prof David Olusoga looks at the impact it's had - and how young people are taking it on. Abolition was the first mass philanthropic movement in Britain, and it ended the slave trade in 1807. So is Richard Murphy. (I suppose it makes a point about blame not being distributed homogeneously, or that a certain group of people shouldnt be guilted just because they share the same colour of skin with another bunch of people you do think are guilty. * the legal institution and pretty much the practice How would Nigeria treat a foreigner like him? Should black history be taught all year round? Instead the racket still goes on with endless boatloads of illegals swarming into Europe. Then a young teenager, he was driven out of his council home, together with his grandmother, mother, two sisters and younger brother, by a sustained campaign of nightly stoning of their windows. The Russians do not have these problems because they are not ashamed. Fryers book was monumental, inspiring conferences, publications, the setting up of local history groups, the establishment of Black History Month, and radio and television programmes. In 1796, a bill was defeated by only four votes: a group of abolitionist MPs went to the opera and missed the vote. Thats why we get it. Im not even saying thats a convincing argument, it has some very serious weak points, just that I reckon its a stronger one than a general appeal about current inequality. But that ignores how the demand of outsiders led inevitably to far more supply being provided. The world has seen more slavery since its abolition than before. Macmillan, 624pp, 25, David Dabydeen is a novelist, broadcaster, academic and co-editor of The Oxford Companion to Black British History (Oxford University Press), This article appears in the 16 Aug 2017 issue of the New Statesman, Trump goes nuclear, Quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics. Societies have what morals suit them. Have you ever read the account by Ibn Fadlan of a Viking funeral in Russia? Prof Olusoga is not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano's story. If black lives really mattered these people would be protesting the 500 shot dead so far by predominantly black men in Chicago this year. It is about the centuries-long engagement with Africa, a consequence of which is the black presence in Britain. Olusoga, who is half-Nigerian, traces this focus to his mother telling him when he was a child that Nigerian soldiers served in World War II. This is nothing to do with slavery or as with black lives matter, blacks being shot, and everything to do with a shakedown of the white man. Get back to me in seven years, when youre ready to order. His choice of subject and his choice of material make that very clear. Those who grew rich on slavery and the slave trade were not neutral and no achievement or act of philanthropy justifies airbrushing their involvement from history.. Black and British: A Forgotten History addresses one of the greatest silences in British historiography. Prof Olusoga, the presenter of the A House Through Time TV series, calls it an act of "historical salvage" to bring to the fore the black British figures who had been "lost in the archives, completely forgotten". BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, The Meaning of Zong, Spacious open-plan family home in Muswell Hill, Five Cineworlds across south London still at risk of permanent closure, Residents who have 'suffered for years' to be asked if they want blocks knocked down, Dazzling Thamesmead light festival returns with performances, films and flash mob, Charlton murderer claims prison guards broke his arm and sues for 20k, Children and young people with eating disorders face treatment postcode lottery, Angry protests erupt over Greek rail disaster, How fake copyright complaints are muzzling journalists, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. Nobody will stop you, honest. Read about our approach to external linking. Olusoga is of half Nigerian descent. I have that estimate saved and ready to be critiqued as part of a larger project. "Equiano is the most important voice that we have from the British experience of slavery and the slave trade," he said. A House Through Time returned to BBC Two in May for its third season, and once again is fronted by historian extraordinaire David Olusoga. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? Perhaps Im a bit more culturally relativist these days, but just read it again, still absolutely awful. We aint paying no goddam reparations & no-ones gonna make us. West Indians fought with the Allies more than a hundred were decorated. Britain was happy to force the Bevan Boys down coal mines. Now Im trying to imagine just what the strongest case for reparations might be, but even in this thought experiment its hard to see what the eligibility criteria for receiving payment should be, what sum should be due, how much proof is required of eligibility not everyone will have a good set of family records etc. The agreement is being touted as a . . Jamaicans and Nigerians used to hate each other. Anyway, I digress, we did have at some point, a gang of pedos turn up and put their case, reasonably, and were tolerated and conversed with. 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? Its very noticable how nobodys mentioning that the Spanish Empire were doing this for several centuries before the British got involved. But Ill tell you what, slavery and human sacrifice, still awful. if he wants to be an historian he should present a fair and realistic picture of what happened, Your email address will not be published. Now they do. You might have heard of a Romano-British chap called Patrick, got enslaved and nabbed to Ireland? One issue about Westerners buying slaves via a chain of commerce that often ultimately involved Africans selling other Africans at traditional slave-trading locations (there was some slave-raiding by Europeans directly, but rarer) is that the extra demand distorted the market, led directly to more armed slave-raiding expeditions against rival tribes and so on. It is a good deed that must not go unpunished. Needless to say, the national mood changed. What would happen to that money, who knows, but as its (or was) your money, thats between you and your grifter of choice. But its still awful, even on a historical scale.. Under English law, damages are assessed as being that amount needed to restore them to the position they would have been, had the event claimed against not occurred. As a nation, we still have only a dim understanding of the slave system that funded Sloanes collecting. The race obsessed Department of Education goes to considerable lengths to distinguish Caribbeans and West Africans. Their cities, as well as their comfort, will rapidly decay. Some other buyer would have taken them if they werent shipped out, and Western (or Arab) traders were just changing the ownership and location, the sins of the slave-raiders being theirs alone to bear. Nor do I think that sugar is worse than cotton. Id say the same to the Black Lives Matter people. (At least in our society) Get over it. Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion. BurningEars August 30, 2020 at 3:07 pm Theres a flaw in arguments of the form frankly you should be glad I murdered your sister. Then dont discuss it. It's possibly a deeper change than some people realise because I don't think what we're living through is a series of political events; I think we're living through a generational shift," he says. 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. TV historian David Olusoga claims it is "palpable nonsense" to say that removing controversial statues "somehow impoverishes history". Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. Cheap ass presentism. What has Nigeria ever done for him? It doesnt end with the parties saying Well that was pleasantly intellectually stimulating, now lets have a nice game of cricket Youre opponents are not playing by the same rules as you are. The Royal African Company, established by Charles II in 1672, eventually enslaved and transported more Africans than any other company in British history. Its extraordinary success rested upon the foundation of sympathy laid down during the previous 70 years of abolitionist activity in Britain. 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.. And the Domesday Book even counts slaves as a separate category below the unfree peasants (villans, bordars and cottars) those owed service to a Lord who could order them to move about and could say yes or no to their proposed marriages, but unlike slaves he didnt own them, couldnt sell them, and they had property rights to at least a smallholding. No. He previously worked at JP Morgan for 18 years in a number of senior roles and was . But oddly enough, people like Olusoga havent given me the cash yet. How could Britain, a civilised and Christian nation, indulge in rape, torture, killing and the forced labour of Africans over two centuries? 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. Rapidly promoted to sergeant, then second lieutenant, he led white British troops into action and died in 1918, having been mentioned in despatches and recommended for the Military Cross. Required fields are marked *. And this of course neatly addresses MBEs arguments. Whitey bad, give me cash? This is because forgetting slavery means forgetting its victims. Read about our approach to external linking. Prof Olusoga says statues, such as those of slave traders . 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.. 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