RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Stanwix England on Thursday 23 July 15 20:45 BST (UK)
-
I think the last episode of two aired last night.
I thought it was a really good documentary and I certainly learnt a lot about the topic. Very sobering and of great interest to genealogists I thought.
-
It was superb and very interesting. As many of my ancestors were wealthy Mariners, I did look on the web site to see if they had been slave owners. Thankfully they had not.
The presenter seemed a little bitter in the first episode but he did raise some difficult questions about our views on people.
-
I didn't watch it, but I did see the presenter interviewed recently when he was asked his opinion of slave owners. He said it was a difficult question as he'd found out that some of his own ancestors had been slave owners.
-
I understand his difficulty, but believe it is both futile and wrong to judge the past by today's ethos.My wife was very agitated when it appeared that an ancestor of hers lived in the house of a slave owner resident in Yorkshire. Luckily I was able to show that the lady concerned was not in the direct line, but most likely a cousin and quite likely illegitimate,
-
I agree Roger - but it seems to be very PC to judge the past by today's standards, especially when the PC people only seem to be judging the British past and ignoring what happened elsewhere.
Lizzie
-
Full agreement on this Lizzie. I believe it is important to move on except when the past has a direct bearing on the present situation; and sadly there are very many of those world wide, ranging from colonial peoples' relics in Western Museums through the Elgin Marbles and Ethnic massacres from ancient history in some cases to more recent atrocities.
-
There has been too much smoke n mirrors on this issue, Britain became the world power on the back of the slave-trade, where I live was the former estate of a sugar planter in Jamaica, probably nobody in my street knows that? not for nothing did Glasgow erect the first monument to Nelson, his fleeet chased the French out of the Sugar Islands and saved the city's economy, built originally on tobacco. Scandalously, slavery is still with us, even here & now.
Skoosh.
-
I have a distant relative who was a slave owner, not in this country but in the Caribbean. I do see what people say about judging by the standard of the time, not by our own standard. Yet at the same time I can't help but feel disappointed in him and that what he did was pretty horrendous. I think what particularly grates on me is the fact that he was a surgeon. He'd more than likely cut people open and he knew that we were all the same underneath the skin with the same bones and blood, yet he was willing to imprison people simply because of the colour of their skin.
The thing that for me undermines the idea that slave owners, I'm referring to those who actually lived with their slaves, were just acting by the standards of their day is the hypocrisy in how they acted. Some claim that slave owners were able to have slaves without feeling guilty because they saw the slaves as being racially inferior to the point of being subhuman. They had a paternalistic attitude towards them and so on and so on. Yet at the same time many male slave owners were happy to have sexual intercourse with their slaves. How can you have sexual intercourse with someone you see as being little better than an animal? Maybe a lot didn't but it was a well known practice and I've never seen any evidence that slave owners who didn't rape their slaves looked down on the ones who did. It suggests to me that they adjusted their thinking in order to fit in with what was convenient for them at the time, possibly on an hourly basis. I really believe that they knew on some level that what they were doing was wrong, but they closed their minds to it.
I have more understanding for those who inherited slaves. I suppose if your parents had slaves it would have seemed normal.
-
It's certainly a very difficult subject, and I can see why some would feel very upset - but it's a historical fact, even if we don't like it today, that it happened.
We should just try to ensure that it doesn't continue today, albeit in slightly different forms.
I found a distant link with a slave-owner, and it does make you feel a bit soiled, to say the least - but I feel just as soiled by the link with one or two factory owners when I read how they treated employees.
We are fortunate to live when we do, and fortunate to be able to look back and learn from our ancestors and their behaviour.
-
How can you have sexual intercourse with someone you see as being little better than an animal?
I hesitate to point this out, in case anyone, anywhere, ever, thinks what I'm about to say is my own opinion, but for many centuries and in many societies men in general considered women in general to be inferior humans.
As to slavery, I have the impression that those who started the process did not see Africans as inferior in any way except for having inferior weaponry and therefore being exploitable. Until the institution was under criticism there was no need to use racial stereotyping to "justify" slavery.
-
Having watched the program, the presenter observes and comments on the propaganda war waged by the slave owners and the legacy of that propaganda still with us today.
-
As I was born and bred in Hull I quite often visited William Wilberforce's home turned museum, thus saw at first hand the awful devices used on the Africans.
What we don't hear anything about is the transportation by British estate owners to their foreign plantations of their peasants, who usually died due to heat and exhaustion. Nor do we hear of the estimated 50,000 British convicts sent to the Americas who were auctioned off to work on plantations.
-
Part of the buried past Rena that the "establishment" don't want to see the light of day. Regarding having sex with people who were described as sub human, I have two observations 1) This was often a feature of slavery and colonialism. Why are do many black Americans have European surnames; e.g Washington? 2)There is also the DNA evidence that there is Neanderthal DNA in modern humans which can only have got there by rape of modern human women by Neanderthal males, or by modern human males having sex with Neanderthal women.
-
by rape of modern human women by Neanderthal males, or by modern human males having sex with Neanderthal women.
An obvious case of prejudice seen here, the Neanderthals rape, the modern humans just have sex. ::)
It's all an assumption anyway, maybe the females were the instigators. who knows?
-
Prejudice noted, and unconditionally apologised for. Entirely unintentional shows the extent of the mindset even in someone like myself whose views on most issues I believe would be unacceptably left wing to most users of this site,
-
Slaves "surnames" were simply the name of the family they "belonged to" usually. Many serfs and servants earlier in Europe seem to have gained their surnames in a similar manner, didn't they?
-
Slavery in all forms is disgusting, vile, and the worst form of human behaviour. I dont think its difficult to understand that.
Fortunately we are not responsible for the actions of our ancestors. The actions they took, are theirs alone. I dont agree with this idea that times were different back then, and this somehow supports the actions of people who abused other human beings.
The slave owners back then, are no different to people today. Some people would do anything for profit, regardless of time or enviroment. And with no thought of the people who suffer by consequence.
-
Do you not mean; "will do anything for profit"
-
I thought that was clear from the context!! They will indeed do anything for profit.
-
Why are do many black Americans have European surnames; e.g Washington?
My husband's family from the Caribbean have surname after the slave owner who was most likely Irish.
Margot
-
A point occurs to me. Some Roman slaves had shaven heads with their owner's name tatooed on their scalp.
-
I also have early slave traders in my ancestry, Butterfields in Lancaster, one of the brothers was Mayor of Lancaster and both were respected members of society. Some of their fellow slavers were early Quakers, I have no idea how they reconciled that :) My aunt was horrified and deeply upset by this discovery, however, in reading around the subject, in Lancaster at least, a slave was a major status symbol and consequently were usually freed immediately after purchase and held major positions within their household. A status symbol won't cut the mustard if he/she is hidden away in the kitchen, garden or outbuildings! So it seems many actually had a reasonably comfortable lifestyle, free men and women, clothed, fed and a roof over their heads.
Please do not misunderstand, I am in no way a supporter of slavery in any form, historical or modern :)
-
We must also remember that African tribal chiefs sold their people to Arab slave traders ,who then .
sold them to European slave traders.
John Newton who wrote many hymns, including "Amazing Grace ", "How sweet the name of Jesus sounds"was a slave trader, presumably slaves were of no concern to God in John Newton`s
mind set.
My son( who likes to buy me very unusual presents )got me some slave money, not for the people themselves but what was handed over to their chiefs as barter.
It is like a torque but smaller, made of iron and was prized by the warring chiefs to use for weapon making.It was melted down.
Originally as large as a normal neck torque but as the value of slaves decreased so the "money " became smaller.
My dad had some volumes of H.M.Stanley`s book"In Darkest Africa", recounting his search for
Dr. Livingstone.
The Illustrations terrified me, many showed the extreme cruelty of the tribal chiefs and the way people walked to the coast to the "holding " prisons ,to await transport to N.America and the West Indies. They were all fastened together in one long neck restraint made from a split tree, so cruel and painful. Hands tied behind their backs and iron fetters round their ankles.
It took many weeks to reach the coast where the "holding"prisons were where they waited for transportation in those dreadful ships toN.America or The West Indies.
It is hard to imagine that people could see others as sub human and treat them so badly.
Abraham Lincoln sent a message to the people of Lancashire for their fortitude in holding out against using cotton from slave owning plantations during the American civil war.
There was great hardship as a result of course.
Different times, different standards and values but it is still baffling to say the least that people could behave so wickedly towards others, and then despise them for what they-the owners-had reduced them to.Viktoria.
-
...
Scandalously, slavery is still with us, even here & now.
History may be uncomfortable, but it is important, so that the same mistakes are not made again.
However, the reality ...
The Independent
10 Aug 2017 · The enormous scale of modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK has been revealed in a major official report, with hundreds cases affecting “every large town and city in the country”. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the scale of the issue is far more prevalent than ...
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/10/modern-slavery-uk-nca-human-trafficking-prostitution
Terrible to think slavery is still with us in the UK.
Mark