This [British] offer of freedom encouraged thousands of American slaves to escape, risking their lives to reach a fleet of ships waiting on the James River. ibid.
‘This was the first mass liberation of slaves in the British empire … Britain paradoxically was still the world’s largest slave trader.’ ibid.
A man who went on to take Georgian Britain by storm. One of the former slaves who managed to get out of America was a teenage boxer from Staten Island called Bill Richmond … In his early 40s he made the most bizarre decision: he gave it all up to become a bare-knuckle boxer in London … He was challenged to a fight: it was the spark that set him on course to become a boxing star, and one of Georgian Britain’s most famous celebrities. The world of prize-fighting, bare-knuckle boxing was special to the British in a way no other sport was, because the fighter was said to be the embodiment of the national characteristics of bravery and manliness and resilience, all the kinds of things the British liked to believe made them who they were. Now, these were the same days when Britain was the biggest slave-trading nation power in world, and yet by entering into this ring [Repton club], into this sport, Bill Richmond, a black guy, a former slave, was able to become a national hero. ibid.
After fifty years of campaigning by the abolitionists and after centuries of rebellion and resistance by the slaves themselves, slavery in the British empire was finally over. As the moment of abolition approached, the slave owners had no idea what would happen next … They’d started to believe their own propaganda. David Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History III: A Moral Mission
The new Victorians saw the abolition of slavery as the dawn of a new age of progress and enlightenment for Britain and its empire. ibid.
Within thirty years this Victorian sense of moral superiority would come crashing down. ibid.
The adopted daughter of Queen Victoria … The Queen agreed to become Sarah’s protector … A royal protegé … Sarah had taken her place in Victorian high society … part of the Victorian elite. ibid.
The main focus of the Victorian moral mission was America. ibid.
‘I came here because slavery is the common enemy of mankind … Rise up and crush this demon of iniquity.’ ibid. Frederick Douglass
The plot of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is relatively simple … Uncle Tom is murdered … Every bit as famous as Oliver Twist or Jane Eyre or David Copperfield. They’ve been forgotten today but at the time everybody knew who they were. ibid.
Britain was making a fortune from cotton grown by enslaved Africans. ibid.
In Memory of the Rochdale Millworkers who supported the struggle against slavery during the American Civil War 1861-5. ibid. plaque
In memory of over 1000 Jamaicans brutalised or killed following the Morant Bay Rebellion. ibid. plaque
The great battle of ideas that divided country and empire. ibid.
These Georgian terraces in the heart of London conceal a forgotten chapter in Britain’s history: a new study of a government archive from the 1830s reveals that many of these houses were once the homes of Britain’s slave owners … These records transform our image of the slave owner; they reveal that thousands of them lived all over Britain, and they show how the profits from slave ownership ran deep in British society. David Olusoga, Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners I: Profit & Loss, BBC 2018
A huge sum of money was raised by the British government: that money – the modern equivalent of £17 billion – was paid out in compensation not to the slaves but to the slave owners. ibid.
Their money helped lay the foundation of our modern world. ibid.
1834: These are the files from the Slave Compensation Commission: they record all the claims for compensation. ibid.
46,000 slave owners came forward. ibid.
The slave system was ruthlessly enforced right from the start. ibid.
It details the slave owners’ reprisals for acts of resistance. ibid.
It was a system based on terror; it was a system that was medieval in its mentality. ibid.
Women accounted for more than 40% of the slave owners found in these records. ibid.
A nation as addicted to cheap sugar as it was to the profits of slavery. ibid.
Above all the slave system made Britain wealthy. ibid.
For 200 years slavery was a powerful engine that drove the British economy. It allowed Britain’s slave owners to amass extraordinary personal wealth. The abolition of slavery in 1834 is often remembered as a great triumph of British liberalism. But new research based on a vast collection of documents at the National Archives is revealing a darker side to the story of abolition. David Olosoga, Britain’s Forgetten Slave Owners II
The slave owners lived all over Britain … Britain’s slave owners waged a decades-long battle against the forces of abolition. ibid.
The slaves hurled themselves into the struggle for freedom. ibid.
The slave owners had lost the moral argument. They were facing defeat and economic ruin. So they turned to their other argument – compensation. ibid.
The slaves themselves – they would receive no compensation. ibid.
This is a very bureaucratic process imposed on society. ibid.
Something grubby about this part of the process. ibid.
The Slave Compensation Records also show how slave generated wealth built many of the great estates that shape our countryside. ibid.
The profits from slavery helped build modern Britain. ibid.
Slavery is part of our national story. ibid.
200 years after Britain abolished slavery it’s back. In the UK 13,000 are said to be trapped in this hidden underworld. The prime minister Theresa May has described slavery as a barbaric evil, and the numbers continue to rise. The Modern British Slave Trade, Channel 4 2017
His [Billy Connors] actions could be quite extreme: Chris had been beaten with a metal tow bar … Chris did try to escape the Connors’ clutches … Four months later he disappeared … Alarming tales of slave-like conditions at Billy Connors’ site … Sixteen men were rescued … One man had been held by Billy and Breda Connors for more than thirty years. ibid.
Lately, Britain’s nailbar industry has come under scrutiny. ibid.
To this day slavery has never been officially abolished in Morocco. Alice Morrison, Morocco to Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure II, BBC 2017
The Philippines: among the many nations whose history is being colonized and subjugated by the world’s empires today suffers the consequences of that legacy: underdevelopment, high unemployment, and deepening poverty. This has led to a phenomenon that dominates the lives of millions of Filipinos: the fact that 10% of the population, mostly women, must leave the country to seek work. Abby Martin, Buying a Slave, Abby Martin online May 2017
This global black market ensnares 21 million people around the world, making $150 billion illegal profits for traffickers. ibid.
There are currently two million migrant domestic workers that live in the US, around three hundred thousand of whom are Filipinos. ibid.
Also ruled through violence and oppression. Rome’s rise to greatness was inevitable. Bettany Hughes, The Eight Days that Made Rome e2: The Spartacus Revolt, Channel 5 2017
This is the day in the summer of 73 B.C. when a band of slaves took on the might of Rome. They were led by one of the most legendary names in history: Spartacus. ibid.
They knew that slaves were potential insurgents, and one day in 73 B.C. their worst fears were realised. ibid.
A group of highly trained specialist slaves …. a full-blown slave revolt. ibid.
The protest and the idea of freedom is contagious. ibid.
Two thirds of the slave army was slaughtered. ibid.
Elizabeth van Lew was one of the most daring and important women spies in the American Civil War, and one of the bravest women in American history … a spymaster behind enemy lines. History’s Ultimate Spies s1e6: Elizabeth van Lew
She had a Quaker education which instilled in her a strong belief that slavery was wrong and should be abolished. ibid.
‘A one-woman campaign basically to free every slave she can.’ ibid. Ross Andrews
She established a highly effective intelligence network. ibid.