Came across the following a while back, so not claiming it as my own. Here is something you are unlikely to learn via the BBC. In the 17th century the seas around Britain were ruled by North African Muslim Slavers. They stopped British ships and carried off the crews to be sold as slaves in Algiers and Tripoli. The situation became so bad that fishermen from Devon and Cornwall wouldn't put out to sea in case they were captured by North African Slave Traders. Between 1609 and 1616, 466 British ships were captured by Slave Traders in the English Channel, Irish Sea and North Atlantic, and the crews were sold into slavery. In 1625 a raiding party landed at Mount's Bay in Cornwall and 60 people who had taken refuge in a local church were dragged out, loaded up and taken off to Africa to be sold as slaves. On 12th August 1625 the Mayor of Plymouth wrote to London for military help after 27 ships had been seized by North African Muslim Slave Traders in just 10 days. In 1645, 240 people were seized as slaves in Cornwall. The situation only began to change after the end of the English Civil War when the Royal Navy was built up under Oliver Cromwell. By 1700, North African Slavers generally knew better than to bother the British Isles in the search for slaves because of the Royal Navy. It was a triumph that Britain was finally able to control its own coastal waters. It was in commemoration of this that in 1740, James Thompson wrote 'Rule Britannia. It is a hymn of thanksgiving rather than a proclamation of aggressive Nationalism.
So the taxpayer who has never owned slaves gives money to persons who have never been a slave. Sounds reasonable.
Rule Britannia was originally the final musical number in Thomas Arne's play "Alfred" about Alfred the Great. The song was an exhortation- prior to the period it was written the Dutch were the predominant naval power- and its telling Britannia that she needs power at sea. As it was written during the War of Jenkins' Ear, it probably relates to Spanish aggression at sea. The Barbary Corsairs did indeed raid around the Mediterranean and as far north as Britain and Iceland. They did indeed take captives from these places who were sold into slavery. They were a constant problem for merchant shipping and coastal towns for centuries. Like the Transatlantic Slave Trade, its a more complex situation though. For example, many of them were Europeans who had based themselves in North Africa and raided from there because it was a convenient base away from the authorities in their own countries and they had a ready-made market. Often, their ships, especially earlier, weren't as advanced as ships from the European Naval powers- many of them were still using galleys- so while a major problem, couldn't really control the seas.
The money should be taken from the small number of influential to this day families who were compensated to the tune of 100s of millions of tax payers money when it was abolished imo. Another lesser known fact the Danes started the ball rolling on abolishing the trans Atlantic trade.
Aye, we're all slaves to on degree or another. I wonder if they're going to do the same to Africa since their tribal elders sold off the slaves ?
I'm more than happy for the individuals who benefited from slavery to be held responsible because the vast amount of ordinary people in the UK didn't get a penny of it. Some nice buildings popped up in Bristol and other ports, a few statues got put up, but our ancestors still worked themselves to an early grave in mines, their children worked in factories etc Like the East India company, the huge amount of profit went to a small and select group of people. Good luck getting them to pay out.
If only it was that simple though. The be same people who benefited through slavery were also philanthropic in their outlook. Edward Colston did a lot of good in Bristol. I’ve mentioned it before about the statue of the third Marquis of Londonderry who has a statue in Durham. He made his fortune through sending little kids down the mines and even argued for their continued use in Parliament. But Durham and its surrounds hugely benefited from his family industry. Bleating on about the slave trade won’t change history no matter how bad that history was. As has already been said, the sins of the father….
Ultimately, philanthropy is a fine thing and should be encouraged. That said, do their good works make up for their other activities. How much of it was genuinely charitable and how much was to distract from bad practices elsewhere. Colston invented a Hot Cross Bun the size of a bin lid to hand out to Bristol's disadvantaged kids. He called them Colston Buns so his name would be publicly associated with the deed. The statue in Durham was, and still is, the world's largest electroplated object. Yet, when his tenants in Londonderry needed famine aid Vane only gave a token amount.
During the BLM situation a couple of years back there was a website that popped up with a searchable database listing slave owners, slave ship owners and details of purchases relating to the slave trade, mostly in America but a lot of British subjects in the Caribbean etc. Searching Sunderland only bore one result associated with the town and slave holdings, they were a family called Hayes, you might know them today under the spelling Hays as in Hays travel. The correct pronunciation of that name is "HIGH-EZZ" and it is not English or Christian, neither were the Sunderland based family. Point being, if we actually zoned in on the individuals and families directly associated with slave holdings, it would quickly become problematic.
Great idea. I sugest that The UK Governments agrees to pay over all the money they recieve from Italy, (from Roman enslavements ), Germany (from Saxon enslavements), and the Nordic Countries (from Viking enslavements), across to some international body, say The UN. who can organise the payment of reparations, Slavery is not just an African issue. This is an interesting site that charts a timeline, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom From this it seems that it might be rather complicated work out just who might owe what and to whom.
Can't say I can find any link between the Hays family and slavery, nor anything to suggest that about their ancestry. There are some much more prominent local families who were associated with slave owning.
