While the British committed a great many historical sins in the course of their Empire, including benefitting, for hundreds of years, from the slave trade, the turn towards abolitionism and suppression of the slave trade in the 19th century is a legitimate good that occurred. Fuck the British Empire’s colonialism as a whole, but at least a few of these British lads sailing to free folk from the slave trade occurring between Africa and Arabia are legitimately men worth honoring. Chattel slavery - whether imposed by native or foreign elites - is a fucking evil that deserved suppression.
In this crazy point of history where the entire political world seems to be regressing … it’s a good thing you added the year to the end of that headline … or else I would have thought this was an event that happened last week.
Look, I’m not SAYING I’m an anti-American traitor ready to swear allegiance to the British crown…
… but if the Brits picked me up tomorrow and told me that us lowly colonials were being freed from the abject form of slavery we’re being subjected to… I’d at least think about volunteering for His Majesty’s Navy.
I would question what a British naval vessel is doing so far inland though
Must’ve taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
At least you didn’t end up on the menu … yet
It’s crazy that the whole abolitionist movement stepped into high gear when James Riley and his crew were turned into slaves to Saharan traders after they were shipwrecked in Africa, and James - the last surviving member of his entire crew - wrote a memoir about his ordeals.
It had to happen to the white man, for the white man to empathize with other slaves at the time, to call for abolishment. Very… uh… us.
That seems a questionable assertion, though? Looking up James Riley, he wasn’t shipwrecked and captured until 1815, which is long after the abolition movement had kicked into high gear. By that time, Britain had already outlawed the slave trade entirely, and declared any man who set foot on British soil as free, and France would soon follow suit. American abolitionism had resulted in the Northern states having largely abolished slavery or put the legislation in action by this time, though border states had experienced backsliding with the rise of the cotton gin.
Not only that, but slave narratives by white folk were not, themselves, new - they had a long history dating back to the 16th century, due to the raiding of North African pirates.
oh fair enough, I thought Riley’s story was influential in turning the tide of the movement in Britain, but you’re right – it was influential only in the US when Lincoln read the book
Rescued Slaves Crowd the Deck of the HMS Daphne, 1868 explains the circumstances in a little more detail.
