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Aidan McQuade: Lessons to learn from the horrors of slavery
FOR the first time, the transatlantic slave trade will this month become a compulsory topic in history lessons in England. School pupils will learn about the history and impact of slavery alongside other important events such as the world wars and the Holocaust.
It is important that students are respected enough to be given a "warts and all" account of the role this country played during what was one of the ugliest chapters in world history.
Britain was a leading slave-trading nation and profited greatly from the forced labour of Africans on Caribbean plantations. Ironically, Britain was also at the forefront of an abolition movement which saw unprecedented public support.
At least 10 million Africans were abducted, enslaved and transported to the Americas, the equivalent of the entire population of Britain at the time.
It is true that some Africans played a role in the enslavement of other Africans, though with 90 per cent of all slaves sold to European traders, the transatlantic slave trade made an industry of slavery on a scale never before seen on the continent.
Despite the fact that the buying and selling of human beings and the working to death of millions of Africans for profit was regarded by many as acceptable, heroes did emerge who fought to end the trade.
The most famous remains the Hull MP, William Wilberforce, but students will now have the opportunity to learn of the role that black abolitionists played in galvanising support against the slave trade. A notable black campaigner in Britain was Oluadah Equiano, a former slave
who bought his own freedom and wrote a best-selling book revealing
to people worldwide the experiences of slavery.
Indeed, it is essential that the new curriculum uses this opportunity
to include the story of Africans – who were not passive during this horrific period of mass enslavement. There were frequent rebellions
in Africa, on slave ships and in plantations. August 23 was chosen as Slavery Memorial Day, specifically because it commemorates a great slave rebellion in what is now modern-day Haiti.
The learning and understanding of the transatlantic slave trade is also essential for combating slavery's enduring legacy of racism. In the 17th century, it was not uncommon for poor white British people or the indigenous population of the Caribbean to be used as slaves, but soon slavery became solely the bitter experience of Africans.
During the years leading up to the abolition of the trade, those with a vested interest in its continuation spent vast sums of money persuading the public that slavery actually benefited Africans. One ex-slave captain, while giving evidence to government, even claimed that "the voyage from Africa to the West Indies was one of the happiest periods" of an African's life.
Unfortunately, the impact of the propaganda on the inferiority of all things African persists to this day. Rarely is it explained that African nations were of comparable wealth and size to many of their European counterparts prior to the onset of the transatlantic slave trade.
It is also often overlooked that the end of the transatlantic slave trade, in 1807, did not immediately mean the end of slavery, which continued in other forms in the Caribbean until 1838.
Even with the abolition of slavery, most former slaves were trapped by poverty. While the end of slavery brought reparations for the slave owners, incredibly it was not deemed necessary to compensate
the former slaves. When freed, they were not given the land for which
they had toiled for generations, and most remained reliant on
their former masters for badly-paid work.
In place of slaves, plantation owners also looked to other parts of the British Empire for cheap and vulnerable workers to exploit. Labourers, or "Coolies", from India and China, worked for years to pay off the cost of their transport to the Caribbean, and through exorbitant interest rates found themselves working without payment.
This form of debt bondage persists to this day and examples can even be found in the UK. Forced labour and the trafficking of people have not gone away and it is a sad fact that 12.3 million people remain in slavery in the 21st century
Learning about the transatlantic slave trade will help students better understand the roots of contemporary slavery and racism and will, hopefully, inspire a new generation of abolitionists to take
up the fight to stamp out slavery in all its forms.
Aidan McQuade is director of Anti-Slavery International.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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