Celebrating the bicentennial anniversary of slavery’s abolition …121 years too early
This March, many government-sponsored events will take place around the UK to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery. This feeds in to government attempts, led by Chancellor Gordon Brown, to define in the public mind so-called ‘core British values’ of tolerance, liberalism and so on.
I’ve written more here about the political utility of engendering specious nationalistic conceits like Brown’s notion of “Britishness”, and how such attempts run exactly counter to what a productive view of the nation’s history might entail. This is exemplified in the gap between the official and the actual history of Britain’s role in the abolition of slavery.
First, take a look at the government’s version of events as set out in this document, particularly the chronology. It mentions Britain’s banning of the slave trade in 1807, notes that slavery itself did not end in Britain’s empire for another 3 decades, notes the sterling efforts made by Britain to stamp out the trade, and notes that other less civilised countries took far longer to abolish slavery themselves (France in 1848, the US in 1865 and Brazil in 1888).
Now contrast this with the factual record. Joseph Hanlon, a senior lecturer in development and conflict resolution at the Open University writing in yesterday’s Guardian, sets out a rather less flattering chronology. In fact, slavery persisted in some British colonies for as long as 121 years after the abolition of the trade in slaves, not of slavery itself, that we are set to commemorate in a few weeks:
“The 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act …was always intended to only "gradually" end slavery, and the law was initially only applied in the West Indies. Slavery was abolished in the Gold Coast in 1874 and in southern Nigeria in 1916.
In 1924 Britain was forced to admit that slavery was still practised in Sierra Leone, northern Nigeria, Gambia, Aden, Burma and Hong Kong.
When the governor [of Sierra Leone] wanted to abolish slavery there in 1921, Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for the colonies, replied that "the abolition of slavery could not, however, have any immediate beneficial effect on the finances of the colony".
Captain WB Stanley, commissioner of the Northern Province, reported in 1924 that there were 219,275 slaves in Sierra Leone, 15% of the total population. Governor Sir Ransford Slater wrote that year: "My first impression [on arrival] was one of surprise that in Sierra Leone … there should still exist, even in the hinterland, an admitted form of slavery."
Britain in 1926 signed the League of Nations slavery convention. But it was quickly in trouble with the League, following a ruling by Sierra Leone's supreme court on July 1 1927, which declared that the status of slavery "is clearly recognised" and thus "the use of reasonable force [by the slave's owner] in retaking of a runaway slave must also be recognised". Court president Mr Justice Sawrey-Cookson added: "It must be as absurd to deny an owner of a slave his rights to retake a runaway slave as to deny a husband certain rights which follow on a lawfully contracted marriage."
Slavery was finally abolished in Sierra Leone on January 1 1928, nearly a century after the Abolition of Slavery Act. In marking the end of slavery, this is the date which should be used.”
I’m sure there’s more to be said about the gap between the official and the actual version of events, but this is the most striking account that I’ve seen so far. British slavery did not end until 1 January 1928, barely a lifetime ago. But since this doesn't fit in with the "core British values" of New Labour fiction, the government instead leaps upon the 1807 Act banning the trade in slaves - the first step on the 121 year-long road to the end of British slavery – and presents it as being, to all intents and purposes, the substantive end of this vile practice as far as our country was concerned. The official abolition in 1833 is thus rendered a mere footnote in the official history, and the date of the actual ending of slavery itself – which his what many people in March will think they are celebrating – is ignored altogether.
There are three things to note about slavery. Firstly, that it was a monstrous crime. Secondly, that the descendents of its victims have had to suffer its legacy as well, even up until the present day. And thirdly that by contrast, many of us have done and continue to do rather well out of its legacy. As Cambridge historian Richard Drayton points out, the historical debt Britain owes to Africa is “incalculable. For without Africa and its Caribbean plantation extensions, the modern world as we know it would not exist. Profits from slave trading and from sugar, coffee, cotton and tobacco are only a small part of the story….English banking, insurance, shipbuilding, wool and cotton manufacture, copper and iron smelting, and the cities of Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, multiplied in response to the direct and indirect stimulus of the slave plantations…African slavery and colonialism are not ancient or foreign history; the world they made is around us in Britain”.
So if not for the sake of historical accuracy then out of respect for the victims of slavery, for their descendents, and out of contrition for our continuing to gain from the crimes of our predecessors, we should at least rise up to the level of not fictionalising the history of British slavery, any more than we would fictionalise the Nazi holocaust.
The role of history for the nation and for humanity should, like the role of experience in one’s personal life, be to inform our future actions and aid our development by drawing lessons from as clear and accurate a view of the past as we can possibly assemble. This is never more true than in the case of episodes such as slavery. To instead do something as ugly as to hi-jack and misrepresent the history of British slavery in order to spin a national myth about our essential goodness as a country would be essentially to admit that we’d barely escaped the moral level one might hope we had left behind in 1928 - and that furthermore, we don’t intend to. It would also be the sort of cynical and tawdry exercise in making political capital out of other people’s misery that New Labour specialise in.
By all means let’s commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of the end of British slavery. But lets leave it until 2228. And lets spend the intervening period learning the facts about British slavery, not to find some source of fuel for our national sense of conceit, but as a serious exercise in learning its lessons.
I’ve written more here about the political utility of engendering specious nationalistic conceits like Brown’s notion of “Britishness”, and how such attempts run exactly counter to what a productive view of the nation’s history might entail. This is exemplified in the gap between the official and the actual history of Britain’s role in the abolition of slavery.
First, take a look at the government’s version of events as set out in this document, particularly the chronology. It mentions Britain’s banning of the slave trade in 1807, notes that slavery itself did not end in Britain’s empire for another 3 decades, notes the sterling efforts made by Britain to stamp out the trade, and notes that other less civilised countries took far longer to abolish slavery themselves (France in 1848, the US in 1865 and Brazil in 1888).
Now contrast this with the factual record. Joseph Hanlon, a senior lecturer in development and conflict resolution at the Open University writing in yesterday’s Guardian, sets out a rather less flattering chronology. In fact, slavery persisted in some British colonies for as long as 121 years after the abolition of the trade in slaves, not of slavery itself, that we are set to commemorate in a few weeks:
“The 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act …was always intended to only "gradually" end slavery, and the law was initially only applied in the West Indies. Slavery was abolished in the Gold Coast in 1874 and in southern Nigeria in 1916.
In 1924 Britain was forced to admit that slavery was still practised in Sierra Leone, northern Nigeria, Gambia, Aden, Burma and Hong Kong.
When the governor [of Sierra Leone] wanted to abolish slavery there in 1921, Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for the colonies, replied that "the abolition of slavery could not, however, have any immediate beneficial effect on the finances of the colony".
Captain WB Stanley, commissioner of the Northern Province, reported in 1924 that there were 219,275 slaves in Sierra Leone, 15% of the total population. Governor Sir Ransford Slater wrote that year: "My first impression [on arrival] was one of surprise that in Sierra Leone … there should still exist, even in the hinterland, an admitted form of slavery."
Britain in 1926 signed the League of Nations slavery convention. But it was quickly in trouble with the League, following a ruling by Sierra Leone's supreme court on July 1 1927, which declared that the status of slavery "is clearly recognised" and thus "the use of reasonable force [by the slave's owner] in retaking of a runaway slave must also be recognised". Court president Mr Justice Sawrey-Cookson added: "It must be as absurd to deny an owner of a slave his rights to retake a runaway slave as to deny a husband certain rights which follow on a lawfully contracted marriage."
Slavery was finally abolished in Sierra Leone on January 1 1928, nearly a century after the Abolition of Slavery Act. In marking the end of slavery, this is the date which should be used.”
I’m sure there’s more to be said about the gap between the official and the actual version of events, but this is the most striking account that I’ve seen so far. British slavery did not end until 1 January 1928, barely a lifetime ago. But since this doesn't fit in with the "core British values" of New Labour fiction, the government instead leaps upon the 1807 Act banning the trade in slaves - the first step on the 121 year-long road to the end of British slavery – and presents it as being, to all intents and purposes, the substantive end of this vile practice as far as our country was concerned. The official abolition in 1833 is thus rendered a mere footnote in the official history, and the date of the actual ending of slavery itself – which his what many people in March will think they are celebrating – is ignored altogether.
There are three things to note about slavery. Firstly, that it was a monstrous crime. Secondly, that the descendents of its victims have had to suffer its legacy as well, even up until the present day. And thirdly that by contrast, many of us have done and continue to do rather well out of its legacy. As Cambridge historian Richard Drayton points out, the historical debt Britain owes to Africa is “incalculable. For without Africa and its Caribbean plantation extensions, the modern world as we know it would not exist. Profits from slave trading and from sugar, coffee, cotton and tobacco are only a small part of the story….English banking, insurance, shipbuilding, wool and cotton manufacture, copper and iron smelting, and the cities of Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, multiplied in response to the direct and indirect stimulus of the slave plantations…African slavery and colonialism are not ancient or foreign history; the world they made is around us in Britain”.
So if not for the sake of historical accuracy then out of respect for the victims of slavery, for their descendents, and out of contrition for our continuing to gain from the crimes of our predecessors, we should at least rise up to the level of not fictionalising the history of British slavery, any more than we would fictionalise the Nazi holocaust.
The role of history for the nation and for humanity should, like the role of experience in one’s personal life, be to inform our future actions and aid our development by drawing lessons from as clear and accurate a view of the past as we can possibly assemble. This is never more true than in the case of episodes such as slavery. To instead do something as ugly as to hi-jack and misrepresent the history of British slavery in order to spin a national myth about our essential goodness as a country would be essentially to admit that we’d barely escaped the moral level one might hope we had left behind in 1928 - and that furthermore, we don’t intend to. It would also be the sort of cynical and tawdry exercise in making political capital out of other people’s misery that New Labour specialise in.
By all means let’s commemorate the bicentennial anniversary of the end of British slavery. But lets leave it until 2228. And lets spend the intervening period learning the facts about British slavery, not to find some source of fuel for our national sense of conceit, but as a serious exercise in learning its lessons.
Labels: Britishness
5 Comments:
FYI, an interesting book published last year:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/DIRSCA.html?show=reviews
I sincerely thank you for sharing your thoughts.
It helps immensely.
"Lies have their end, but Truth lives forever"
African proverb
Peace.
An African in Britain.
Toyin - thanks very much for your kind words
sk - this is a very useful recommendation. Thanks very much indeed. Its a potential research area for me so I'll definitly be reading this.
I suspect many people who comment about the slavery today themselves could have been pioneers of slave trade if they had come to write about two hundred year ago.
As a white man, I feel extremely disturbed about the manners people address issues surrounding this 'white' evil practice. Majority of the British Media are known for their hypocritical natures anyway. But to see black commentators being foolishly glorified by their white employers make me realize the need to give my audience to the African Muslims at www.esinislam.com and www.islamafrica.com rather than bothering to open columns of the Church of England in the Daily Mail and the Telegraph.
Stop all you talking about abolition of slavery. I painfully read a quotation from the London based African Sheikh Adelabu who insisted the slavery was never abolished and that if it was, it had not been by the whitemen.
Sheikh Adleabu - I tought from not knowing him well - sounds too pan-African. In fact, he is an African with good knowledge of the West. Alert! He too can be racist too. Racism is not confined only to the white people... That's why we must stop talking about this unpleasant occasion of so-called abolition. slave, agreeing with Sheikh Adelabu for once, has just started.
Williams Goldsmith
I suspect many people who comment about the slavery today themselves could have been pioneers of slave trade if they had come to write about two hundred year ago.
As a white man, I feel extremely disturbed about the manners people address issues surrounding this 'white' evil practice. Majority of the British Media are known for their hypocritical natures anyway. But to see black commentators being foolishly glorified by their white employers make me realize the need to give my audience to the African Muslims at www.esinislam.com and www.islamafrica.com rather than bothering to open columns of the Church of England in the Daily Mail and the Telegraph.
Stop all you talking about abolition of slavery. I painfully read a quotation from the London based African Sheikh Adelabu who insisted the slavery was never abolished and that if it was, it had not been by the whitemen.
Sheikh Adleabu - I tought from not knowing him well - sounds too pan-African. In fact, he is an African with good knowledge of the West. Alert! He too can be racist too. Racism is not confined only to the white people... That's why we must stop talking about this unpleasant occasion of so-called abolition. Slavery, agreeing with Sheikh Adelabu for once, has just started.
Williams Goldsmith
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