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- unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
Lloyd’s of London and Church of England also to be approached over role in past exploitation
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How the fuck these boomers are still king and queen in 2023? Britishers are fucked in the head. Just take over their castle and put these baby boomers in a retirement village.
I wonder what they’re expecting? The British Empire was the first major world power to abolish slavery, decades or, sometimes, centuries before the others. They imposed a death penalty on slave traders, and the Carribbean island of Tortola (now in the Virgin Islands) was home to Kingstown, the first colony of freed slaves. The biggest opponent to the abolition of the slave trade was the royalty of Lagos, the ones who were actually farming the slaves and selling them; it took the British Royal Navy to put an end to them once and for all. The debts incurred by the British Empire from buying the slave’s freedom - and the Royal Navy policing the Atlantic and Carribbean seas looking for slave ships - were only paid off late in the 20th century.
If they were serious, they’d be commemorating what the British Empire did to end a millenia-old tradition of people as property. Maybe they could do it in the crumbling ruins of St. Phillip’s Church?
They’re demanding reparations from the royal family, not the british empire. Apparently, they can trace financial benefits from the 1700s to King Charles III.
Your proposed defense is basically that the practice of theft has been discontinued and that others were also thieves at that time.
This is just ridicolous. The british royal family was massively involved in the slave trade.
Also claiming the british empire was the first “major world power to abolish slavery” is rich, given that the empire became a world power because of slavery and genocidal colonization. Also it nicely ignores, that the british were still well involved in slave trade outside the mainland. A slave trade that was also genocidal, as hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans died even before reaching America.
But British people skewing and denieing their history of slavery, genocide, robbery and brutal opression is typical. I hope the fallout of Brexit finally gets them off their high horse and onto the ground of reality.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier this year, the Guardian revealed that direct ancestors of King Charles III and the royal family bought and exploited enslaved people on tobacco plantations in Virginia.
Research by the playwright Desirée Baptiste unearthed a document instructing a ship’s captain to deliver the enslaved Africans to Edward Porteus, a tobacco plantation owner in Virginia, and two other men.
Support for the research was part of Charles’s process of deepening his understanding of “slavery’s enduring impact”, the spokesperson said, which had “continued with vigour and determination” since his accession.
“It is part of our shared history that caused enormous suffering and continues to have a negative impact on Black and ethnically diverse communities today,” the company stated on its website.
“There’s no doubt that those who were making the investment knew that the South Sea Company was trading in enslaved people, and that’s now a source of real shame for us, and for which we apologise,” Gareth Mostyn, chief executive of the Church Commissioners, told BBC radio earlier this year.
Adrian Odle, a lawyer and commission chair, told the Telegraph that British institutions are compromised by their ancestral guilt, saying “every property that the royal family is in possession of has the scent of slavery”.
The original article contains 638 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!