P rofessor David Olusoga is reviewing a disorientating year from a familiar place: his white-painted study, the one with the guitars hanging from its walls. 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, even if, as it happens but their owners could not have predicted, their surviving descendants ended up financially better off on average than the counterfactual of remaining in Africa. it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them Thats why we get it. Thy did not try to grow or raise the next generation. Prof Olusoga says statues, such as those of slave traders . Not sure theyd do that with modern sensibilities mind you. Britain was happy to force the Bevan Boys down coal mines. David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. What would happen to that money, who knows, but as its (or was) your money, thats between you and your grifter of choice. Nor do I think that sugar is worse than cotton. Then the second. West Indians fought with the Allies more than a hundred were decorated. And the third, fourth, fifth, and so on. And yes, grand scheme of things, forced choice between living in a central Asian city about to be captured by ticked-off Mongols and an African tribal group about to be captured by profit-hungry slavers then fine, I take the latter hands down. His book is a product of that childhood terror, and partly an exploration of his condition as a black Briton. It does not take people long to starve to death and slaves were paid for. The Celtic version of slavery (which ran to quite a different model) was still going on in the places the Romans didnt reach. Not sure how sick this makes me. Would probably have taken your suggestion as a challenge. Even did something positive. The vast majority of Americans are not guilty. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? A renowned economist has said that $12 trillion should be afforded to black Americans in reparation for slavery to help the close wealth gap.. Will Britain change? Prof Olusoga is not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano's story. Giles Terera, the Olivier award-winning British performer who starred in the popular theatre production Hamilton, has recently staged a play called the Meaning of Zong about the massacre of 132 enslaved Africans aboard the slave ship Zong in 1781 and the impact it had on Equiano. I do not see what is different between a plantation in Africa and a plantation in Virginia. Forbes magazine's extraordinarily arrogant contributor Tim Worstall Jeremy Corbyn. 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). 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. If there were African states with legal continuity to those political entities which established and encouraged the African slave markets, they would be on the hook too, but theres a discontinuity due to colonialism and besides, everyone knows to sue the rich guy not the poor guy. So how much have considered paedophilia? @ Boganboy And yet Africans and West Indians were banned from the victory parade in 1919. 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. Whitey bad, give me cash? He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. He saw how enslaved people who had risen up were burnt to death, castrated or mutilated, punishments he regarded as merited. So he calls himself a Geordie. Nineteen eighty-four was a transformative year for David Olusoga. It's all down to people in their 20s, those at school and in their teens, who have a relationship with history which, says Prof Olusoga, is profoundly different from that of their parents and grandparents. The masses who once supported black freedom now campaigned for the Deep South. (If the likes of SMFS believe Western society will fall apart without a return to traditional Christian-inspired values, I suggest they either don a pessimists crash-helmet or just cling on and enjoy the ride to Hell in their top-gear handcart. 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. His choice of subject and his choice of material make that very clear. I assume these were usually killed before Europeans turned up and bought them. The following decades were taken up with popular and political rhetoric about immigration and parliamentary acts to limit blacks coming to Britain. Two men managed to escape and were rescued, but not before my great, great, grandfather was beaten, starved and worked to death, his body thrown into the jungle for the animals and insects to dispose of. Britain should be proud of helping to stop (African to America) slavery, like the Republican Party and unlike the Democrats. Slaves were crowded in a new environment with new diseases. But its still awful, even on a historical scale. "The phenomena of which he is iconic is one that we have written out, edited out of our nation. Women such as Elizabeth Heyrick continued to lobby for the abolition of slavery. The system he witnessed and wrote about was one in which human beings were worked to death. Davids all done. 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. His black half can get the half-payment direct from his white half. 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. 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? As he states, The oral history of 20th-century racial violence has never been collected or collated, but it is thereand it is shocking.. You might have heard of a Romano-British chap called Patrick, got enslaved and nabbed to Ireland? Rather that certain western states, still in existence therefore potentially still liable, regulated and indeed encouraged the development of both the transatlantic slave trade and the slave-labour economic systems of the colonies, at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too. They arent going to concede anything. Not many remember anything about segregation either. Married an American GI after the war. 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. I dont think the traders can be given a pass on this front either., Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong.. It isnt happening now. This ignorant fellow should study historical facts, rather than believing and repeating lies and half-truths. So 10.416 were sold by the Africans every month for one hundred years, There will be no peace on this issue until black people acknowledge their own responsibility for the trade. The enslaved Africans had to wait another five years for their freedom and were not given a penny. 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. There is no reason to single White people out for unique levels of criticism. There is no reason to single White people out for unique levels of criticism. The novel became the bestselling book of 19th-century Britain; it was adapted for the theatre and generated mass-produced merchandise playing cards, jigsaws, tableware. But any planter who deliberately starved his slaves to death would quickly go bust. 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?. It isnt going to happen anyway. Do I feel like I had anything to do it? They also ran a slave trade to the Ottoman empire and white slavery in the north without any help from Europeans. It was, I believe, the first book I ever bought for myself with my own money. When I met her, ~1995, I started asking her questions about the war, as I thought she was a fabulous resource of information. He writes to inflame white guilt, so that you will ACCEPT destruction of your culture. "They do not want British history to be a catalogue of heroes and victories and glorious chapters," he says. 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". Olusoga was born in Lagos to a White mother and a Nigerian father - who, I hate to say nautrally, did a runner. But Muslims were enslaving white Europeans into Africa long before the Atlantic route, usually castrating the males. I think it's an astonishing achievement.". You dont have esoteric discussions with paedophiles any more than you would with serial killers. They organised a boycott of sugar, produced more petitions and hosted meetings. (As the first person to mention the Sokoto Caliphate ahh, forget it.). Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. Or anything to do with slavery. Yet theyre so many centuries and generations removed from the crime, everybody involved with the decision-making is long-dead and while the responsible state still exists, in practice compensation comes from taxes paid by citizens who had no part in it all. Fired by religious feeling, they embarked on a campaign of public education and political lobbying unprecedented in scale and revolutionary in nature. Between that night at the opera and 1807, nearly 800,000 Africans were enslaved. Black and British: A Forgotten History addresses one of the greatest silences in British historiography. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. In 1986 I came across the book Staying Power by the British journalist Peter Fryer. Even Bill Clinton had affinity for the USA. The world has seen more slavery since its abolition than before. 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. Video, 00:02:30Should black history be taught all year round? He has discovered new and exciting research materials in African archives, among them the Register of Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone, which list names, bodily details, ethnicity and origins, thus putting a human face on people otherwise treated as fodder and statistics. In 1787, they met in London and set up the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade. David Olusoga's Family David Olusoga, age 49 was born to a Nigerian father and a British mother. And the transatlantic slave trade? Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. Young people - such as Lavinya Stennett who founded the Black Curriculum campaign group - have been calling for change. Country Star Kacey Musgraves: Voting for Trump Is an Act of Violence. But you need a different approach if you dont think great-grandkids of the Confederacy are still fair game.) Like the Nigerian slavers who enslaved and sold the slaves, you mean? His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. This history of the black presence in . Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Olusoga brilliantly reveals such contradictions in British society. Hundreds of White women raped every day. No one has said we should not consider someone elses viewpoint. The Royal African Company, established by Charles II in 1672, eventually enslaved and transported more Africans than any other company in British history. Youre right, MBE. Whoever has the upper-hand in power political, cultural, economic, military or whatever other form is decisive at that moment. The rest of this looks like the usual white washing (so to speak) of African slavery. Long after he had published Corydon, his defence of pederasty. Anti-black riots broke out in Liverpool that year. 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. "The way history is viewed is changing. And any reparations should be paid 50% by the African states for the areas which sold the slaves and pocketed the proceeds. The people in Portland, Seattle and Kenosha are too decadent to fight back. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. Id say this to Mr Olusoga. Roman writers such as Pliny who chronicled or rather fabricated African life shaped perceptions of a continent populated by anthropophagi and other fantastic creatures, half-human, half-animal. ), Who is fundamentally right about reparations for slavery? More than a million copies were sold in Britain cheap pirated versions reached a mass readership. 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