... The slave revolt, which lasted more than 12 years, was inextricably intertwined with the French Revolution. In September 1792, as the revolution shifted to the left, the new convention sent three commissioners and a new general, Laveaux, to St Domingue. The commissioners declared before they left that they had ‘no intention of freeing the slaves’ – so they remained Toussaint’s enemies ...
This is perhaps one of the most remarkable stories in all human history, but because it turns history upside down it is not told in history books. The story of Toussaint L’Ouverture is almost entirely obliterated from British (and even French) culture. There is a film about Spartacus – he lost, after all – but none about Toussaint. There is a wonderful book by C L R James – The Black Jacobins – which is reinforced now by Robin Blackburn’s comprehensive history: The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery. In general, though, important people everywhere have been reluctant to disclose too much about Toussaint L’Ouverture and his army lest some rather obvious lessons might by learnt – and acted on.
... William Wilberforce did not abolish slavery. The slave army of Toussaint L’Ouverture started the process – which was not finished until the slaves of America had to join white people in the North and fight a civil war to abolish slavery. The emancipation of the slaves was fought for and won by the slaves themselves. Paul Foot, article July 1991, ‘Man’s Unconquerable Mind’
Emancipation is the demand of civilisation. That is a principle. All else is intrigue. Ralph Waldo Emerson
If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever. Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essays Contributed to Edinburgh Review, 1843
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. Henry David Thoreau
None are most hopeless enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749 – 1832
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Grand Inquisitor
As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. Martin Luther King, speech 16th August 1967
We simply don’t know what percentage of Britain’s population was taken into slavery during the Roman era. Bettany Hughes, The Roman Invasion of Britain III: Dominion, History 2009
As much as 40% of Pompeii were not free. The Roman Empire commanded the biggest slave population in human history. As many as 200 million people were enslaved during its lifetime. Bettany Hughes, Secrets of Pompeii’s Greatest Treasures, Channel 5 2020
America’s hundreds of thousands of slaves languished in captivity. It was in religion that they found comfort and consolation. Some slaves took Jefferson’s fine words about faith and freedom at face value. None more so than Andrew Bryan. Bryan led one of America’s earliest black Christian congregations. The American Future: A History by Simon Schama, BBC 2008
One commodity would be reaped by another: by slaves ... The economy in the Caribbean wasn’t just a side-show to Empire, it was the Empire. Three and a half million slaves were transported in British ships alone. Simon Schama, A History of Britain s2e4: The Wrong Empire, BBC 2001
So how was it that in little over a century the people that thought of themselves as the freest on Earth ended up subjugating much of the world’s population? How was it that a nation which had such a deep mistrust of military power ended up the biggest military power of all? How was it that the empire of the free turned into the empire of the slaves? How was it that profit seemed to turn not on freedom but on raw coercion? How was it we ended up with the wrong empire? ibid.
But the English counties weren’t the only place where it was said something had to be done to avert bloodshed. In Suriname, Guyana and in Jamaica a push to the edge by hope and desperation there had been slave rebellions put down with a ferocity which made Peterloo look like a picnic. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: Forces of Nature
The message of the Romantics: We are all brothers and sisters beneath the skin. We all share praise be to God the same nature could at last be embraced not as a cry for retribution, a call to the barricades, but as the anthem of a great and peaceful crusade. Abolitionism healed old wounds. It brought together Thomas Bewick and William Wordsworth under the same great tent of righteousness. ibid.
In 1834 Britain abolished slavery. And at a time contrary to some legends when the market for its products was becoming more not less lucrative, it was the first great nineteenth-century victory for the Party of Humanity. ibid.
There is another painting in the 1840 show about which the critics are also absolutely unanimous: in dismay and scorn. J M W Turner’s Slave Ship ... The greatest British painting of the nineteenth century. Simon Schama’s Power of Art: Turner
In the late 1830s one issue galvanised moral British outrage more than any other: slavery. Britain had outlawed slavery throughout the empire, but in Hispanic empires and the United States it not only survived but thrived. In 1840 in London an international convention of the great and good was planned to express righteous indignation. ibid.
A hundred and thirty-two Africans – men, women and children – their hands and feet fettered – were thrown overboard into the shark infested waters of the Caribbean ... Thousands of Britons abandoned their indifference and became campaigners against the slave trade. ibid.
Turner’s approach to this appalling tragedy was ... to summon an apocalypse, a typhoon. The Slave Ship pitches us into the midst of a fevering dream of catastrophe, terror, sin and retribution. ibid.
This is a day of martyrdom, retribution and judgment ... Slavery would be defeated. There is after all a patch of clearing blue at the right hand top of the painting. The critics went to town. Turner became the butt of jokes. ibid.
There are some stories so big, stories tell us who we are and what we’ve become, we can’t believe they ever got away, vanished from the history books. But then I had no clue about this story myself: escaped American slaves who fought for King George, not George Washington, in the American Revolutionary War, who flocked to the British flag, thousands of them. Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings, BBC 2018
The British made the slaves an offer: come over to our side and we’ll give you your freedom. From all over Slave America, thousands took up the offer and became fugitives. ibid.
So Thomas Peters and thousands of other fearful, hopeful, men, women and children came to the New York dockside, desperate for passage to land and freedom on the last British sailings. And where was this promised land? About as far away from the southern plantations as you could possibly get, on the wind-whipped eastern edge of Canada – Nova Scotia. ibid.
The idea that in Africa there could be a place where ex-slaves would enjoy true liberty and security – that place was on the coast of Sierra Leone, and they call it the Province of Freedom. ibid.
Within days of sailing the fleet was in trouble … the violence of the storms they encountered … people were dying … Smashed and scattered about, they were still a liberty fleet. There was nothing like them at sea. ibid.
Was this the place they had dreamed about? … The company men in London had made sure they would as usual be subject to rules made by white men. The deception was a recipe for trouble. ibid.
With the rains came another scourge – disease. ibid.
Now they would make their hands bleed for themselves. ibid.
‘The whites show nothing but extravagance, idleness, quarralling, waste and insubordination.’ ibid. John Clarkson
A stunning landmark: free elections for ordinary people decades before it came to Britain and America. ibid.
In the Old Testament the slaves identified very much strongly with Moses. Moses is like the quintessential hero. Dr Francois Clemmons
There’s no way to confirm even that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. The Bible Uncovered: Exodus/Riddles of the Bible: Exodus Revealed, National Geographic 1997
Is life and bondage better than death? The Ten Commandments 1956 starring Yul Brynner & Anne Baxter & Charlton Heston & Edward G Robinson & Yvonne De Carlo & Debra Paget & John Derek & Sir Cedric Hardwicke & Vincent Price et al, producer & director Cecil B DeMille, Joshua
Because a man is born in slavery that doesn’t mean that he is a slave. He has to think of himself as a slave before he is one. To be a free man you have to start thinking as one. The Ten Commandments 2006 ABC mini-series starring Dougray Scott & Naveen Andrews & Omar Sharif & Linus Roache & Paul Rhys, director Robert Dornhelm, music Randy Edelman
They for example thought that slavery was perfectly fine. Absolutely OK. And then they didn’t. And what is the point of the Catholic Church if it says, We couldn’t know better because nobody else did. Then what are you for! Stephen Fry with Christopher Hitchens v the Catholic Church, debate 2009
The Catholic Church also benefited enormously from the southern slave trade. Satanic Vatican
George Washington had slaves. The Father of our Country. The Sopranos s4e3: Christopher starring James Gandolfini & Lorriane Bracco & Edie Falco & Michael Imperioli & Dominic Chianese & Steven van Zandt & Tony Sirico & Robert Iler et al, Carmela to son at breakfast, BBC 2002