My ancestors didn’t own SLAVES

Have you ever considered that one of your ancestors may have been pupped by the dastardly land owner, his agent or some other higher ranking official who would have owned slaves?

 

The working class of this United Kingdom have all ways been slaves to the upper class's ever since time immemorial an act in 1839 I think that was the date give or take a year that Queen Victoria declared that no child shall work in the coal mines after the Husker Pit disaster of 1838 at Silkstone were 26 died aged 7 to 17 girls and boys, but not because of there age but because these children were working naked her religious beliefs thought it un proper, one of the greatest achievements of the working classes was to introduce unions at a cost of many lives ( Tompuddle) springs to mind, unfortunately, all we have fought for is steadily beaning eroded in front of our very eyes by this government since 2010 we are just hanging on by a thread thanks to the E.U. workers rights laws once we are out at the end of the year its "god help us."

 

I stand corrected, however, most of our sugar came from the West Indies....

 

1842 Mine Act.
I did a lot of research around the working conditions of everybody during this period. I focused mainly on the factories and there is a huge amount of primary source documentary evidence available from the multitude of governmental commissions that were formed during this period. They found (shock,horror) that the working conditions were appalling and often deadly. Despite much opposition the state did intervene with the introduction of several acts. These acts mainly offered protection to children under 10 and those older had their hours of work restricted.

 

Anyone for a game of bowls?

 

Bowlsist

 

I do think people tend to confuse the historic phenomenon of 'legal' slavery with the abominations that subjected the poor to horrendous lives during the industrial revolution. Human slavery has been a constant since the dawn of man. The misery of the industrial working-class has only been around c.350 years. The two are not quite the same. Slavery is not necessarily dependant on economics although it can generate income. Crap conditions for working-class people are a by-product of the prevailing economic system and the contract which labour agrees to. Slavery is not always entered into freely (although it can be). As I say, not quite the same

 

You are quite right the two in reality aren't comparable, not remotely: there's no confusion here. The point i am making is that the rural peasant pre-industrialisation and the proletarian post industrialisation, most likely making up 99.9% of the population did not own slaves overseas as someone stated.

 

Well done... another successful shoehorning of Brexit and an anti-Con post in a thread about slavery and racism!!

 

Bo11ox !!

 

A very large part of it did.

Money from the slave trade or from goods produced by slaves (rum, sugar, tobacco) was put into mines, factories and mills.

We also taxed the **** out of India and removed about 75% of it's wealth.

Similar in Africa and the other parts of the Empire.

We have a very inglorious imperial past.

 

On the Clarke Odour issue mate.
If that’s how he’s quoted. Then he’s a very naive young man.
There’s a line to be drawn when he says a town that’s inhabited with racist morons. He’ll not find a club or town in this country that doesn’t have racist morons. I personally would have preferred him to use country as a comment. not just highlight Barnsley.

 

Those were my words, not his. This is his words:

 

You'd be surprised at how many people owned slaves.

It was like share ownership, you could even part own a slave or be part of a consortium.

It was not just the landed elite, it was spinsters with a few quid too.

 

Very true, I remember being taught as junior school that Britain once "owned" three fifths of the world, and being shown a map with all our conquests and colonies coloured red.
There didn't appear much that we didn't own.
We didn't get it by being polite and fair, we didn't rock up and knock on the door of a target country and say "Excuse me old chap, I'm from the British Empire, I don't suppose you'd mind us stripping you of your resources, minerals, labour, and freedoms would you?"
"You would???"
(Turns to the most powerful armed forces on the planet stood behind him)
"Right lads...get in there and kick some @ss, oh, and build 'em a railway, they'll be grateful for that"

It's only by recognising and acknowledging our past history, that enables us to move on and ensure we progress towards a just and fair society

 

The Encyclopaedia of British Slave-ownership at UCL - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/project/details/

This will let you check if your ancestors had links to slavery.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/british-history-slavery-buried-scale-revealed

I want to be clear. I’m not saying that everyone owned a slave like we now own cars. But it was far more than just the upper class and elites.

 

So, around 1600 there were virtually no mills, factories, mines. No industry.
The wealth of this country was from trade and piracy and agriculture.
Part of that trade was slaves.

By 1700 a large part of the trade was slaves or slave goods (rum, sugar, tobacco, coffee).
Still very little industry.

1800, still very little industry, the slave trade under real pressure but most wealth generated by trade of slave made goods.

Then came the end of slavery in 1833, compensation was paid to slave owners but not to slaves. Plantations still owned by the former slave owners, former slaves employed in virtual slave conditions.
Most wealth still generated by trade goods - but that compensation was re-invested in the new money generator - industry.

This "modern" country was built upon the backs of slaves.

That is not to say your ancestors were slave owners, that is not to say your ancestors were not exploited by the same people who exploited slaves, but it is to say that this countries wealth is to a large part created on the backs of slaves.

 

That secondary source has no mention of working class people owning slaves. It does concede that some were 'middle-class'. There is reference here to Orwell's ancestry (terribly middle class civil service).

 

Us,the french,the spanish, the portugese,the italians,the turks, the chinese,etc etc, the list is practically endless with countries that had empires

its easy to think that the british were the only bad guys when talking about empires,we wernt,far from it,empires existed on virtually every continent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires