[David Anthony]

How do you think of the British Empire's approach to slavery?

[Martin Elster]

The White Man's Burden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

How do you think of the British Empire's approach to slavery?

Problematic.

I say this as someone who lives in a U.S. state that technically never allowed slavery, yet which at this very moment has a thriving for-profit prison industry, and also a wilderness firefighting system partially dependent on prison labor that is so low-paid (as little as $2.90 per day--i.e., less than a dollar per hour) that it might as well be slavery.

[Mark McDonnell]

It's a mutual admiration society. A haven for the sort people who applaud each others' complaints about "cancel culture" while simultaneously censoring any sort of criticism of their own views.

(Julie)

Blimey, I just spent half an hour on it. Yep, it's a website full of objectionable, bigoted, conspiracy-addled clowns. For someone like me, who does have issues with certain aspects of "cancel culture", the idea of having any affiliation with this bunch is utterly depressing. It would be like using Hitler to strengthen the case for my vegetarianism.

[conny]

Yep. All of the above. Metrical praise for Tommy Robinson...(?!)
Jesus. Thank God the poems are so bad.

[Quincy Lehr]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

How do you think of the British Empire's approach to slavery?

I assume you’re referring to the 1833 Emancipation Act (after more or less two centuries of actively building an empire on slave labor, especially in the Caribbean). Well, it’s good that it happened, but between the massive compensation to former slaveowners, unpaid “apprenticeships” to, well, “learn” the jobs they had done under slavery, deliberately and gratuitously regressive taxes to prevent social mobility (see the Salt Tax in India for another example), use of indentureship to flood the Caribbean labor market and deliberately create an ethnic division in the work force where none had existed before, not to mention property qualifications designed to keep the bulk of former slaves and their descendants out of politics, it’s clear whose side the British government was on.

[David Anthony]

What are your thoughts on the West Africa Squadron?

[Matt Q]

David, what are your views on the British Empire's approach to slavery?

[David Anthony]

I go along with most of the comments, although the Guardian article linked by Julie does seem an extreme example of judging the past by the ideas of the present.
The West Africa Squadron has been described as one of the few examples of pure altruism by any government, ever, and I'm interested to hear what people think of it.

[conny]

altruism, i think not. A gesture maybe, but no more. the trade
in tobacco/sugar continued and everyone got rich. or even richer
than they were already. they knew where the money was
coming from. Glasgow/Edinburgh/Perth/Liverpool/ Manchester
etc. etc. beautiful buildings, stately homes all over the place.

money invested, and cleansed, in vast enterprise all over the
world. the original money was dirty, but as soon as it reached
the banks it disappeared into railways and ship building, and a
million other things.

also..the 1833 buy-back was like the 2007 bank bailout. equivalent
to £20 billion in todays money. all the money went to slave owners,
zero to the slaves themselves.