Cover Story Black History Month
Left: ‘Abolish Child Slavery’ – demonstraters in the US make their point. Right: A map depicting the main movements involved in the slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries
under the auspices of this House, and agreeable to law. I have no difficulty in saying that the prosperity of Liverpool is intimately connected with the African Slave Trade.” Modern British MPs, used to spin-doctoring and hedging, will
need to take lessons from General Tarleton in honesty and truth- fulness. “As to the situation of Liverpool,” the great General went on, “I have this to say: It was once a mere fishing hamlet, but it has risen into prosperity in exact proportion to the extent of the African Slave Trade, so as to become the second place in wealth and population in the British empire, renowned for its loyalty as well as for its commercial enterprise. Its exports, independent of the African Slave Trade, are superior to any other port except that of London, in the King’s dominions, and the sum which it contributes to the public purse, is near three million annually... “I have no doubt that much evil will result to this country at
fishing hamlet, but has risen into prosperity in exact proportion to the extent of the slave trade” - Liverpool MP General Tarleton
ers and their allies in Parliament. Two MPs from Liverpool were particularly vitriolic in their attacks on the Resolution. But in so doing, they unwittingly got Parliament to accept responsibility for the “African Slave Trade” and the guilt thereof. When the debate opened in the House of Commons on 10 June
1806, one of the two Liverpool MPs, General Gascoyne, stood up and declared: “Knowing the benefits that have resulted to this country from the Slave Trade, I think it would have been advisable to institute rather than abolish such a Trade; for I know that if it had not been for that Trade, this country would never have been in its present independent situation.” His extraordinary admission should surely strengthen the hands
of the slavery reparation activists of today who have been struggling against huge odds to bring a prima facie case against Britain, Eu- rope, and America for their roles in the Transatlantic Slave Trade in which, over 400 years, an estimated 150 million Africans were either shipped across the Atlantic or died during the long march from the interior of the continent to the coast, or during the hor- rendous Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean. In fact General Gascoyne was not alone in acknowledging Brit-
ish founding role in the infamous “Trade” and the great benefits it brought to the UK as a nation, and its individual towns and cities. Another MP from Liverpool, General Banastre Tarleton, even
went further: “Whatever may be said about the injustice or the inhumanity of this Trade,” he told the House of Commons, “it is not to be denied that it is a Trade which has been carried on
32 | October 2011 | New African “Liverpool was once a small
large, from the abolition of the Slave Trade, should that measure be adopted; but with regard to Liverpool, I am confident that great distress, public and private, will be the result; that bankruptcies will follow; and that a number of our most loyal, industrious, and useful subjects will emigrate to America.” Poor General Tarleton. He and the people of Liverpool knew
that the businesses in that town (now city) were soaked in African blood and that if that flow of blood was cut off by an Act of Parlia- ment, the local economy would die and great distress would follow. But there was not much he could do except ask for compensation for the expected “great loss”. In this demand, he was not alone. General Gascoyne and many
MPs and plantation owners in the Caribbean and the Americas all wanted the slave owners to be compensated if the British gov- ernment went ahead and abolished the African Slave Trade. In the end, they got their compensation – including the Church of England for the loss of its slaves; a church supposedly operating in the sight of God, owned and kept slaves and mistreated them, like the other owners! In fact, Generals Tarleton and Gascoyne and like-minded people
should not have worried because Secretary of State Mr Fox, who introduced the abolition motion in Parliament, was clear in his mind that Britain, as a state, was fully responsible for sanctioning and encouraging what he called “the cruelty of seizing multitudes by force, by rapine; [and] supporting that seizure by murder”. And as such, Britain had to pay compensation to the slave owners.
The greatest evil ever Having introduced the debate in the morning of 10 June 1806, Mr Fox had the honour of closing it that night. And did he not enjoy the occasion? “Tere never was a time in which any other evil ex- isted that was comparable to that of the African Slave Trade,” he told the hushed House of Commons. “Tere never was, among human beings, before the institution of the African Slave Trade, anything like the cruelty of seizing multitudes by force, by rapine; supporting that seizure by murder; possessing them by fraud; by false accusation; supporting such accusation by the mockery of
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