Robert Buddan, ContributorNO HARM done by Caribbean people to Britain in the past few years can ever come close to the destruction that Britain and Europe caused the African people of the Caribbean over centuries of slavery.
Britain and Europe profited immensely from the Atlantic slave trade, one of the largest maritime and commercial ventures in history. England, Spain, Portugal and France got rich from it. This story is well-known but many might not realise the involvement of the monarchs of Britain and Europe in this nefarious business. Since the British monarch has declined any moral responsibility in this evil enterprise, she might ask her historians to look again at the record. The British are very nostalgic about their glorious past. Probably their sense of morality is not strong enough to unseat their preoccupation with nostalgia.
By 1500, the Portuguese began trading in slaves and European monarchs invested heavily in the trade, hoping to become richer. At least 14 European countries were involved in slave trading over a period of 400 years. European monarchs were happy to sponsor voyages of 'discovery'. In fact, in 1526 when the Atlantic slave trade was in full swing King Alfonso of Kongo was moved to write to King John of Portugal asking him to put a stop to the kidnapping of his people for slavery. African monarchs had already known that this was wrong but European monarchs obviously did not care. By 1600, the Kongo Kingdom had fallen due to slave trading wars started by the Portuguese. Africans could not deny visas to keep the Europeans out.
BRITAIN'S ROLE
Queen Elizabeth's throne was enriched by the slave trade. Sixty-five members of the British royal family and aristocracy were founders of the Royal African Company in 1663. They included Queen Katherine, Mary, the Queen Mother, James, Duke of York, Henrietta Maria, Duchess of Orleans, Prince Rupert, other Dukes, Duchesses, Earls and Lords. The Royal African Company (as the name suggests) was established by royalty to encourage and profit from the African slave trade. The British were not the first but they became the biggest traders of people. Monarchs before, like King Henry the Navigator, were already benefiting.
It was Britain that surpassed the other Europeans to become the leading slave trading nation until it abolished its trade in 1807. Britain's role coincided with the capture of Jamaica and Jamaica's rise to prominence as a slave-based sugar colony. The rise of sugar was made possible by the growth of the slave trade, and the British monarchy reaped dividends from both ends.
The King's Parliament in Britain granted a Charter in 1662 to The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading in Africa. The company was formed and encouraged to promote the slave trade. It angered British merchants and their supporters in Parliament that the King's Parliament gave exclusive rights to this royal (family) company to trade in slaves. In 1672, the name was changed to the Royal African Company. Under challenge from merchants the exclusive rights were repealed in 1698 but other traders had to pay a tax to the Royal's company to exercise the "right" to trade in slaves. The company continued to exist until 1750 when it merged with a company of merchants trading with Africa. It then trafficked in ivory and gold.
The formation of the company went against some opinion in Britain that disliked the idea of trading in slavery. The Monarchs knew but ignored this objection. By the end of the 17th Century, England led the world in the trafficking of slaves.
The first English slave trader was John Hawkins (1562) whose partner in slave trading was Queen Elizabeth I, ancestor to the present lady. Elizabeth used the military power of the Crown to force a patent from the Spanish King so that Britain could begin trading in slavery. Other notable slave traders were Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. Drake was a partner of Hawkins and Elizabeth. They were knighted by their Royal partners in crime. British history nostalgically treats them as heroes.
BRITISH POLITICIANS
The British Royal family had a deep connection with the slave trade. The Duke of York used to get his initials 'DY' branded on to the left buttock or breast of each of the 3,000 slaves he owned. He shipped them to the Caribbean. This way, the Royal family literally put its stamp on the trade in slavery.
Shortly after Jamaica was captured, the reigning King Charles II became a shareholder in the Royal African Company and the King's Parliament gave grants to the company. In other words, he used his government's money to subsidise his own immoral business.
Other British politicians followed the King's example. Political notables were able to hold off the abolitionists for years. Richard Pennant was an MP for Liverpool (1777-1790). He owned over 8,000 acres of sugar plantations and 600 slaves in Jamaica.
Three out of 41 councillors in Liverpool were slave ship owners or major investors in the slave trade between 1787 and 1807. Liverpool and Bristol were leading centres of slave trading. During this period, all 20 mayors of Liverpool financed or owned slave ships. After slavery was abolished, the British made trading in indentured servants from Asia another profitable business.
Slave trading was so profitable that European monarchs fought wars to establish territory and trading rights. By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) England even gained a monopoly on the Spanish slave trade. Napoleon sacrificed the lives of thousands of soldiers to hold on to France's prized possession of enslaved Haiti.
BRITISH DEVELOPMENT
Slavery financed the founding of many British institutions - the National Gallery, Lloyd's of London and the Bank of England. One British economic historian admitted that, 'slavery is the heart of the wealth of London.'
The explosive growth of the slave trade in the second half of the 17th Century made the international trade in Africans one of the world's largest industries.
Charles II and his Royal family invested heavily. The slave trade supplied the greater portion of the Caribbean population. It was the foundation of imperial globalism. By the 1800s, 32,000 slaves per year were being shipped to the Caribbean, less than the annual migration rate of Jamaicans to the UK. The Royal African Company was involved in slaving between 1700 and 1810, when 50-60 per cent of slaves were imported to the Caribbean and at the time when Jamaica, Barbados and the Leewards were leading sugar colonies.
Slavery produced regular profits for the British empire. By one estimate, West Indian plantations alone earned 150 million pounds for British monarchs, an enormous sum in those days. Profits from slavery and the slave trade built Liverpool, Bristol and London. From sleepy villages, they became bustling towns. Between 1785 and 1787, as many as 500 ships sailed from Liverpool to trade in slaves. Liverpool became Britain's leading port city and shipbuilding its leading industry. Slave profits built Barclays Bank and Lloyd's. Barclays became the banker to the sugar industry, right up to the recent days of Tate and Lyle. Slave profits and the market of the sugar plantations spurred Britain's industrial revolution. The sugar plantations took 20 per cent of British manufactures. Karl Marx noted that, "direct slavery is much the pivot upon which our present day industrialisation turns, as are machinery and credit. It is slavery which has given value to the colonies, it is the colonies which have created world trade, and world trade is the necessary condition for large-scale machine industry."
LAW AND MORALITY
Many cartographers (map makers) regarded African monarchs as having the same status as European monarchs. But international law did not. What passed for international law was really European law. King Alfonso and his people did not have the same standing in European-international law and so they could be traded as slaves and their kingdoms destroyed by guns, ammunitions, tobacco and alcohol introduced to Africa for this very purpose.
The British can hardly cite international law as an excuse for slavery. That law was made by European monarchs. Their maritime and commercial laws were made because they brought in profits. Navigation laws, for example, created trading monopolies. Morality begins with the recognition of people, not as tradable commodities, but as human beings with fundamental rights. The European monarchs had no sense of morality as we understand it today or as it was understood then. In fact, they circumvented the whole issue by deciding that slaves were not really human beings. Today, slavery and the slave trade are regarded as crimes against humanity. Of course, slaves knew that all along.
I wouldn't forgive European monarchs for their corrupt morality then. But for one of them to justify slavery today is cause for strong resentment. The Queen's statement is part of the anachronism of empire. She can get away with this because her Throne is not a democratic one, the same reason monarchs could get away with their corruption in the past.
Robert Buddan is a lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. E-mail: rbuddan@uwimona.edu.jm.
