The Legacy of Colonial Slavery
What connection is there between contemporary society and the exploitation of African slaves that took place many years ago?
The transatlantic slave trade lasted nearly 400 years and was responsible for over 30 million men, women and children being violently removed from the African continent to provide the human capital to finance the Industrial Revolution in Britain and other parts of Europe and America. The infamous Atlantic Trade Triangle was probably the greatest act of human exploitation in the history of the world. The produce of plantation slavery was carried across to Europe providing sugar, rum, molasses, cotton and other goods required to stimulate and maintain the Industrial Revolution. Manufactured goods produced by the working poor in Britain were taken from Liverpool, Bristol and London to be sold or bartered in Africa in exchange for the human cargo held in the slave castles along the West Coast of Africa. The cruelty and inhumanity of the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean islands was notorious for its almost indescribable violence.
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"It’s crucial to understand the history of the transatlantic slave trade, because the greed surrounding it motivated the invention of ideas about race, which we still use today. Race does not exist as a biological fact — it was a social idea that some of the world’s greatest philosophers helped to shape. Renowned thinkers, including Immanuel Kant and John Hulme, propagated theories of inherent African inferiority, an ideology that was necessary to justify trading black people as chattels and stripping them of their humanity." Afua Hirsch
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Each leg of the triangle was profitable, and provided an essential part of European capitalist expansion so that by the end of the 18th century two-thirds of the British economy was in some way linked with colonial slavery. It was an institution supported by the State – the Monarchy, the Aristocracy, bankers, industrialists and politicians were all involved. It was this massive economic factor that had to be overcome by the Abolitionists on both sides of the Atlantic who fought to abolish slavery. Not only Wilberforce, as you may have been taught at school, but also many others such as Frederick Douglass,
"The footprints of slavery, and the profits it bequeathed to generations, still shape the present. The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 formally freed 800,000 Africans. Not one of them got a penny. Instead, the British government paid out today’s equivalent of £16bn to former slave owners to “compensate” them for their loss of “property”, a national debt that took until 2015 to be paid off." The Guardian, 7 May 2019
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The recently removed statue of slave trader Edward Colston. [photo: Tim Green.]
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After the last war Caribbeans, many of whom had served in the British forces, were encouraged to settle in Britain due to post-war labour shortages. Their labour was welcome but their presence was resented. “No Blacks” greeted them in many places. While such open racism is no longer tolerated, hidden attitudes, injustices and inequality still linger and are reinforced daily. In recent years what has become known as the 'Windrush Scandal' has seen many people denied citizenship or 'right to remain' despite many years of hard work and paying taxes. [2] [photo: Duncan C.]
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However, personal, daily 'micro-aggressions' are the larger, hidden part of the iceberg of which the Windrush Scandal is part of the visible tip. For example, a major report into racism in the workplace found that a majority of ethnic minority workers had experienced racial harassment at work or had been treated unfairly by their employer because of their race. Racial inequality was a factor in employment, income, promotion and training. Over 40% of those reporting a racist incident were either ignored or identified as the 'trouble-maker', with over 1 in 10 being disciplined or forced out to their jobs. [3]
Black people are over-representated in prisons, hospitals and low-paid jobs (and now Covid-19 deaths) and under-representated in 'top' jobs, schools and universities. Between April 2018 and March 2019, there were 4 stop and searches per 1,000 White people, compared with 38 per 1,000 Black people. [4] Over half of deaths in police study or after contact with the police are black. In 2013/14, there were 47,571 ‘racist incidents’ recorded by the police in England and Wales: about 130 incidents per day.[5] Many more such incidents go unreported. Check out our Stories page for examples of these "daily indignities". 200 years of silence and historical amnesia on the facts and effects of slavery – both the suffering caused and the benefits it created for Britain – has kept the wider British public in ignorance of what their forebears did in Africa and the Caribbean. While of course not personally at fault for what a previous generation did, they are still the beneficiaries. In short: the legacy of slavery impacts us all, economically, culturally, spiritually, and by embedding an unjust white privilege that exists to this day. |
Image by Kiyun Kim, from Racial Microaggressions
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Further reading: Alton Bell on the legacy of slavery; Khareem Jamal on black abolitionists, John Wolffe on Wilberforce.
"People choose not to know" – Lest we remember – How Britain Buried its History of Slavery: Gary Younge, The Guardian 23/3/2023.
"People choose not to know" – Lest we remember – How Britain Buried its History of Slavery: Gary Younge, The Guardian 23/3/2023.
[1] Historian David Olosuga comments on this compensation here.
[2] Read some of their stories here.
[3] Racism Ruins Lives (2019). Download.
[4] Official Government figures.
[5] Institute of Race Relations.
[2] Read some of their stories here.
[3] Racism Ruins Lives (2019). Download.
[4] Official Government figures.
[5] Institute of Race Relations.