Bicentenary of slave trade abolition
I’ve been sitting on this post for several days now, partly because I’ve been so busy, but partly because the issue is such a sensitive one and I wanted time to reflect on it before I committed myself to writing about it.
I had the honour of representing our National Spiritual Assembly and the UK Baha’i community at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday 27 March. The occasion was the national service to commemorate the bicentenary of the Act of Parliament that abolished the Transatlantic slave trade.
The Queen and Prince Philip were there, as were the Prime Minister and Mrs Blair, many members of the government, David Cameron MP (Leader of the Opposition), Sir Menzies Campbell (Leader of the Liberal Democrats), many High Commissioners and Ambassadors, and representatives of the major faiths.
It was a most moving service, which expressed national penitence for the atrocity of the slave trade, commemorated the work of the abolitionists, black and white, and reminded all of us that, despite the illegality of slavery, this abhorrent and utterly inhuman practice still continues in many forms and in many countries.
This extract from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus VAssa, the African, read out during the service, gives us a sense of what the Africans who were packed tightly into ships and hauled across the Atlantic experienced.
I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life: so that with the loathsomeness of the stench and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables, and on my refusing to eat, one of the held me fast by the hands and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced anything of this kind before, and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it, yet nevertheless could I have got over the nettings I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; (and besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water.
Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797) was born in what is now Nigeria. He was captured when he was 11 and transported to Barbados and then to Virginia. He was sold again and brought to London, where he was baptized in 1759. Equiano was an enterprising character and must have been incredibly tough-minded. He learned English, he learned to read and write and developed skills that made him too useful to his owners to be put to work in the sugar cane fields. He kept going despite many setbacks and was the victim of the fear that the whites had that black slaves would get educated and “above themselves”. He purchased his freedom in 1766 and settled in London. His autobiography, which became a bestseller, made a great contribution to public awareness of the horrors of slavery.
There were other Africans who resisted slavery, amongst them some, such as Ottobah Cugoano and Ignatius Sancho, who lived in England and contributed to the abolitionist movement. The first whites to denounce slavery in Europe and the European colonies were the Quakers (the Religious Society of Friends). British Quakers played a leading role in the establishment of the London Committee to Abolish the Slave Trade, a group that invented much of the repertoire of actions that are still used to day by activists and protest groups.
Perhaps the best known abolitionist in England was William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian and a Member of Parliament. His great-great-great-granddaughter read an extract from a speech he made in the House of Commons on 12 May 1789:
I mean not to accuse anyone but to take the shame upon myself, in common indeed with the whole Parliament of Great Britain, for having suffered this horrid trade to be carried on under their authority. We are all guilty - we all ought to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others.
… And, sir, when we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God? Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it; it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it; we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it; for it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, and to their own consciences, the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision.
Born in 1759, Wilberforce was no saint. He lived a hedonistic life in his early years, spent
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Dear Barney,
The other evening we went to see the film “Amazing Grace” about William Wilberforce. It was very interesting. I know one of the main criticisms levied against the film is that there is very little shown of the slave traders or the suffering African slaves. However, the film was really just about Wilberforce and the problems he had in trying to make the British government of the time aware of the inhumanity of slave trading. Big money was made out of slave trading and the cities of Bristol and Liverpool were made rich out of it so it was vested interest that prevented people from seeing how wicked slavery was.
What I find interesting is that Baha’u'llah wrote His Tablet to Queen Victoria in 1868/69: “We have been informed that thou hast forbidden the trading in slaves, both men and women. This, verily, is what God hath enjoined in this wondrous Revelation. God hath, truly, destined a reward for thee, because of this. He, verily, will pay the doer of good his due recompense, wert thou to follow what hath been sent unto thee by Him Who is the All-Knowing, the All-Informed. ”
This was some 60 years after the Anti Slavery Bill had been passed in 1807. Although it took many more years for the trade in African slaves to cease, it was obvious it must have been of very great significance indeed for Baha’u'llah to have singled out this act in His Tablet to Queen Victoria. This, along with His praise for entrusting the reins of counsel into the hands of the representatives of the people in Great Britain, are surely very great words of praise from Baha’u'llah to the Queen. Something, no doubt, in years to come we in this country can be rightly proud of.
Whereas we know that slavery/trafficking continues today around the world in a different ghastly form, this also will be combatted but perhaps today by governments getting together and not single-handed as in days of old.
Thelma
Thelma, thanks for adding information about Baha’u'llah’s praise of Queen Victoria for the abolition of the slave trade. As you say, Baha’u'llah wrote to the Queen many years after the abolition of the slave trade, for which she was not directly responsible. I guess Baha’u'llah regarded the “Queen in London” as a symbol of the British state and monarchy; His praise (very great words of praise, as you say) clearly signifies the importance of the abolition of the slave trade as an essential step on the road towards the equality of all human beings.
Dear Barney,
Thanks for taking the time to reflect deeply on this sensitive subject.
My reading of UK history is that the 1807 legislation outlawed the slave trade, but not slave ownership. That continued in GB and its colonies as was in turn now outlawed until 1833. A good, brief review is available at http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/antislavery/history.htm
Some of my own ancestors escaped what amounted to UK serfdom, another form of slavery according to this site, and in conditions that were better than slave ships but still often fatal (being tied to the mast was better than being chained in the hold) - disease was rampant on those emigration vessles of the 1830s - to come to Canada. Tens of thousands were buried on the quarantine islands in the St. Lawrence River.
This discussion seems to focus more on the degree of choice or its total absence. Slave had fewer rights, but did have some. Serfs and the unenfranchised had fewer, as they were not property.
This is a very complex and sensitive discussion. Focus on where we are and where we need to go depends in part on a knowledge of the past, but not a pre-occupation with it, but more on following the prescription for living.
Again, thanks for the discussion and reflection.
Best wishes,
Doug
Doug, many thanks for your comments and reflections. It seems to me that the present consciousness of human equality as normative (which, I hasten to add, is far from a reality in the lives of too many millions) is recent in human history and, from a historical viewpoint, odd. But it is such a crucial understanding, one of the highest moral order, that we have to fight for it repeatedly and continually. The discarding of uncounted human lives as worthless, because they were slaves or serfs, was thought of as “normal” for millennia. No longer.
Thanks Barney for taking on this sensitive matter, having read your comments on my own blog in the past I know some of your thinking. I had mixed feelings reading this post. As I have said before, while acknowledging the truth about our collective past as human beings seems to be a healthy act of spiritual discpline, politics has a way of stripping such acts of their dignity. That’s how I would characterize the actions of the African gentlmen you mentioned. Alas, such political theater has become a norm around the world and its practitioners believe that such actions have some positive outcome. On the other hand, public apologies for slavery can degenerate into an exercise in narcissism by those issuing them, especially if the apologies are not followed by personal behavior and public polices that actually promote unity and justice among people of the backgrounds in question. I have little interest whether or not the present generation of white Europeans or Americans feel bad about things their ancestors did. The issue is what are you doing to promote racial unity and justice right now? Are you living in a way that will alleviate the long term impact of the past on the present and future of those who have suffered enslavement, colonization and systematic, government sponsored discrimination, or not? I’m not directing this question at you personally, Barney but I think you see what I mean. The other issue is the comment by the African American who lived in Africa. I could feel his anguish and believe that many African Americans feel a need to romanticize and mythologize Africa because of the systematic trauma they have been subjected to in North America. Ultimately this does a disservice to both African Americans themselves and to peoples in Africa who like all human beings must accept responsibility for what is real and true in their lives and be honest about their own contributions to these conditions. We must arise as a people and demonstrate our innate equality by deeds rather than words which means at the very least abandoning attitudes, beliefs, practices and behaviors that are not consistent with the reality that humanity is one, that men and women are equal, that unity and justice must be the operating principles in all our affairs and that each and every one of us are accountable to God for what we do, not what others did or did not do to us. These are just a few of my thoughts, I’m curious what others think, especially if there are any other readers of African Descent out there who wish to weigh in.
Phillipe, thank you so much for your thoughtful and helpful comment. You are spot on! The political theatre that is driving the demands for apologies and even for reparations is not at all helpful to anyone, as far as I can tell. As angry as some may feel, in the end the only way forward is by demonstrating our innate equality, as you so rightly say. I don’t know if you followed the link to the article on the Barbados Free Press site that linked to my post? It’s worth a read, I think, although the last time I looked the comments on that article had really gone off track.
I would welcome comments from other readers of African descent (wherever in the world you now live).
How did the Black Men’s Gathering go, Phillipe
Thank you for asking about the Gathering. I believe that it fulfilled its mission to provide a safe space for men of African Descent to pray, study and fellowship as we strive to free ourselves to place a role in creating a new civilization for all humanity. I will check out that link that you mentioned. I believe that when a true spiritual consciousness takes hold in the heart of all people, they will spontaneously and authentically relenquish whatever unearned power and privilege they have acquired through a defective and unjust social order because they will see it as a true expression of who they are as human souls, rather than because of guilt or fear or to put on a performance. I’m grateful that as I Baha’i I contribute towards hastening that great day.
I think the interpretation of slavery as just one more link in a chain of sorry human tragedies, overlooks its contemporary relevance to the persistent structural inequities in modern day society. Slavery enabled the West to become the world’s preeminent economic power, and the economic model that slavery was built on, that of rapacious resource exploitation, with human beings being treated as an economic resource, is the model that currently prevails in the world. The ideologies that facilitated the evolution of the slave trade, namely racial supremacy and biological determinism, still flourish and have yet to be determinedly confronted. The sagas of slavery and contemporary poverty and warfare are all of a piece. This reality is of special relevance to the West, which still dominates the world economically and militarily. When we begin to confront the systems created by slavery, systems that are largely predicated on racism, we will begin to address the roots of the issues that drive warfare. “For the accomplishment of unity between the colored and whites will be an assurance of the world’s peace.”* The practice of slavery may have been repudiated, but the ideological and institutional matrix from which it was born lives on, and continues to spawn new forms of racial oppression and exploitation.
Contrition for past and present racial injustice would be best expressed in the form of a commitment to dismantling the legacy of the slave trade.
*The racial terminology used in this quote was common at the time that it was translated, in the early 20th century
Malik, thanks for your comment. As with so many things, the roots of the virulent prejudices that give rise to abhorrent practices such as slavery have yet to be fully addressed. If they had been addressed, modern forms of slavery would not exist, nor indeed would the racial oppression and exploitation that you draw to our attention.
I’m afraid that this is a struggle that will continue for a long time.
How long is entirely up to us.
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