Historian Reveals The TRUTH About Slavery 

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I have heard young people say slavery started in America, our school systems have failed miserably.

The most remarkable thing about slavery as it pertains to western culture is the abolition of it.

The fact that we need to explain these facts to people today, young and old alike, tells you everything you need to know about the state of modern education. This was all well known fact as recently as the 1970s when I was growing up in America. When we lose our knowledge of history we are doomed to repeat its mistakes. It's sad how ignorant the public has become in just a few short decades.

I sat through a meeting where we were told that we can pinpoint the beginning of racism to when the Portuguese started exporting African slaves. As a historian, I nearly shat myself out of sheer shock at the stupidity.

the problem is , people get their history lesson from Hollywood , which is the worst place to get a history lesson

The last couple years I've taken a liking to studying history and the biggest eye opener was how ruthless it was for everyone. Nobody was exempt. But with little pockets of genuine humanity and kindness demonstrated by all races.

From UK, thank you for informing us all that Denmark abolished Slavery 3 years before Great Britain, but ONLY within their tiny country, but that the British Empire FORCED the Abolition of Slavery on every other Country outside of the British Empire as well as within.

“Those that move through life looking to be offended are always successful.” - Me

Some people only care about the parts that make them ‘victims’ so they can monetize it. Never drop the con.

History has always been incredibly brutal. People seem to forget that the rules were "anything goes" for most of history. If France or Spain could have conquered and enslaved Britain, they would have...and vice versa. Life wasn't cosy and cuddly. Most people were illiterate, might made right, people died at a very young age. It was horrible. It's impossible to just impose today's moral righteousness on such a time, when we have so much more education and less hardship now.

The exceptional fact about slavery is not that it existed since humans started forming tribes but that Britain abolished it at the height of its colonial power. Makes you proud to be British 👏🇬🇧

This is not hidden knowledge. Purchasing slaves was as common as buying home appliances now. The thing we should linger on is how we actually got past it. It's a great accomplishment really.

On the west coast of what is now Canada, different indigenous tribal raiding parties from ancient times had conducted brutal raids on weaker tribes literally slaughtering everyone in their path. Except for women and girls which were carried off as slaves. Acquiring female slaves was undoubtedly the prime motivation for the 'warriors' to conduct these raids. What else of value did these poorer tribes possess? But then in the 1860's the first prime minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald, put an end to this barbaric scene. This is the same JA Macdonald that the modern howling idiots are removing his statue which, of course, seems to be just fine with the MSM who never mention he is the one that ended 'first nations' slavery.

I remember I once said ' Free'd slaves had slaves themselves.' I was basically excommunicated from the black union

Indeed, the amazing part about the story of slavery is that modern, compassionate, rational thinkers finally decided to ban something horrible that had been going on since "the dawn of time." Well done, humanity.

Every Brits should be proud of this, and this is in fact the single most admirable progress in the human history.

Africa is the biggest exporter of slavery to this day. It's a culture of dominance within their own people

What’s galling is that modern western societies are having to deal with this accusation of guilt by association when these very societies have shown the greatest moral progress in history. And at the same time slavery and crimes against humanity occurring outside the western hemisphere are simply overlooked. A true activist would try to stop current abuse but that’s hard. Much easier to prosecute history on sympathetic people.

Some people use slavery as a club to constantly beat people that had nothing to do with it.

When I was in school, 40 odd years ago, we were only taught about the slave trade. We weren't told anything about our role in stopping it.

A small point, but last week I watched a BBC prog about Art. For some reason, slavery made its way into the programme....some connection between the Gallery's long long dead owners are slavery. The gallery's Administrator commented about the slaves that "THE BRITISH CAPTURED". Oh dear. No, Slaves from West Africa were NOT "captured" by the british----they were SOLD to the British by Africans themselves who had been trading their own people for many decades before the British got there.

Often overlooked, the Northern states in the US enacted the first laws to abolish slavery by 1799 and establish themselves as Free States. Pennsylvania was the first state to pass a law aimed at ending slavery in 1780.

Very informative. Thanks Mr. Biggar for being willing to speak honestly.

Thank you for listening to someone speaking about the actual historical facts.

'Reparations' for slavery hundreds of years ago is wrong. Simple really.

Unfortunately, when faced with just one of the slavery OBSESSED zealots who regularly appear on GBNews, Talk TV etc, (and we know who they are), this guy would be shouted down, called a liar and all of his arguments refuted or denied in a tirade of shouting, screaming and denial.........he certainly wouldn't be discussing it quietly over a cup of tea whilst being listened to intently. Those people listen to NOTHING ELSE but their own views and refuse to let anyone contradict them!

Another fact of history, is while there were many instances of absolutely barbaric slavery, there were also instances where it functioned as a "privatized well-fare system" in the sense that if a person couldn't manage to survive by failing to feed or house themselves, they could sell themselves into slavery were the agreement essential stood as "I house you and feed you and in return you serve my estate."

What surprises me is that so many people seem to totally ignore slavery has always been a part of history, all over the world and affected all kind of people...

European slavery was a thing long before the Portuguese in the 1400's. The Roman's enslaved Britain's and others within it's empire and after them came the Vikings that were also slavers. Prior to the Romans Iron Age people were into human sacrifice so I have no doubt that they also had slaves too. Much later we had serfs that were slaves in all but name and pressgangs taking men off the street. Then with war came abuses in Europe where people were forced to work for the Nazis and captured British and Allied troops were used as slave labour by the Japanese. But of course only black Africans are the victims of slavery and need reparations and special treatment.

This historian is such an amazingly valuable man in the factual understanding of slavery. We stopped it and continue to try to stop it in other countries. We give billions in aid to black nations. This is a brilliant interview.

As someone who has extensively traveled, there are no greater people in terms of their moral output and simultaneously achievement across every aspect of human life, then the British and their legacy. Legacy. You do not find no matter how hard you try any systemic approach toward active evil. You find many individuals who took advantage who made mistakes who didn't understand, who exploited, but you repeatedly find an overwhelming decency in these people in all the states and places they established that you find in no other people

Dear British people, you do realize that even if some high aristocrats or merchants were involved in the slave trade, then most of yours great great grandparents were most likely peasents who even if not called slaves were in pretty similar situation. You didnt own anything, you could "rent" your little farm from aritocrats and give most of your earnings to them and kingdom or later years escape to the city where you did horrific manual labor and rented a room by day if you managed to earn enough money for that day. And it was common and the sign of its time but still people who had nothing to do with it are dragged into as well.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 2008 that's right 2008 most Arab countries did not outlaw slavery until the middle of the 20th Century fact.

Historically, over millenia, slavery was globally widespread. It seems today, that most outraged on the subject matter have no concept of the history, apart from a narrow selective interpretation.

Thank you so much for not interrupting him and letting him speak!!! Most interviewers are awful in that respect.

Thnak you for your brave stance for logic, decency and common sense!

Listening to some black activists, I sometimes get the impression that they consider past slavery a privilege. This seems the case, as they certainly make a cushy living from the grift.

Slavery is often sold with West. But it was huge in the Middle east too. People often forget the "Golden Islamic period" was a time of rampant, brutal Slavery, sometimes even worse than the West.

The most effective way to destroy people is to destroy and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

It's fair to say that slavery had pretty much died out in Europe by the time contact with Africa was made. It was THAT contact which re-ignited the trade. It's a valid argument that it was the Africans who corrupted the Europeans, not the other way around.

The moment "reparations" comes into the conversation I always ask if they think slavery is racist. If they answer "yes" then I know they are not worth engaging with and should be completely ignored due to poor intellect/knowledge.

The only reason we have the grifters with their sights set on reparations is because we are weak & wracked with guilt - NOT because we were any worse than anyone else as this chap eloquently explains. The answer is just to grow a pair as a nation & shrug the grifters off elsewhere.

Thomas Sowell has some excellent writing on the subject. He says that the US was only remarkable in that we were the only country that fought a war with ourselves to end it, and the UK was remarkable in that they arguably may have exhausted a good bit of the monetary strength of their Empire in trying to end it across the rest of the world where they had the power to try and do it. And still it persists to this day, and no one likes to acknowledge it. Instead we'd rather beat the blameless over a past they had no part of.

They should of taught this in schools ever since it happened. Most people have no idea.

People back then accepted slavery as people do today with sweat shops for fast fashion and footwear.

Young people today need educating by people like this man.

I just realized something interesting with regard to slavery. When slavery is discussed, the topic of slavery in Asia: China, Manchuria,, Joseon, etc..is never, ever mentioned. Or the current one between the Middle East and India

As Nigel says, slavery was a fact of life. People accepted it just as they accept working for a wage today.

What about Slavic people somehow no one mentions. The word 'slave' itself comes from Slavs. I live in Western Europe and most of the people I spoke with (French, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, British) never heard of Slavs as an ethnic group. Furthermore if you check the Wikipedia page 'slavery' Slavs are mentioned there extremely sporadically (maybe 3-4 times in the whole long article). The overwhelming focus is on African people. The role of Slavic people in Arabic/Islam Empire's slave trade is not spoken at all. There were serious numbers of slaves involved (millions of people were captured, enslaved, exported, castrated in early Middle-ages with destinations of North Africa, Spain, Middle East). Not a word about it. Even the etymology of the word 'slave' doesn't clearly specify, which ethnic group is the source of it. One can only wonder what's the reason for this silence. As multiple source material of Arabic origin hasn't been translated it's difficult for western historians to have access to it. Modern culture focuses on African people, which in my opinion distorts the history of slavery (I suppose it's used as a political tool especially in the USA, which is not representative of the whole world). Also Slavs were traditionally considered (from my personal experience still are considered) lower class people among Westerners. For instance if you look at modern Scandinavian historians they still try to avoid connecting Vikings with Slavic influence despite clear evidence.

I've spent decades telling people these things..... Thank you for spreading the truth.

All civilizations knew slavery. But only one abolished it.

That’s the way I was taught in school in the 70’s .

And that guy only skimmed the surface of the matter.

For those reading French read famed historian Bernard Lugan recent book out in the last 3-4 years where he describes the 5 types of historical slavery that occurred. Lugan also was on lots of yt videos talking about slavery. The longest slavery was centuries-long by the moslems with Europeans slaves before the Pope got the Crusades thing going. They're still at it TODAY in some countries targeting Christians or other ethnic/religious groups like Isis did with the Yazidis.

The majority of human history slavery was the normal.... It doesn't make it right, but it is a fact. Almost every race had slaves with the majority of slaves being sourced from the very population owning the slaves... As a progression of warped morality it became more acceptable to have 'others' as slaves instead of your own group. Slaves are still being sold today. My opinion is that the sin of slavery only resides with owners and slavers. Redemption is obtained by participation of the elimination and prevention of slavery. I do not believe that the sins of our fathers are ours We are responsible for our own actions good or bad.

I was living in Africa in the 90s and there were still slaves. Not "servants", not "workers". Slaves. They were called slaves, and they were used as slaves. It was in Mali if you're curious.

2:45 and you should add, this is before machinery. Something we take for granted. Washing machines, child care, sustainable crop maintenance, animal husbandry, all laborious tasks before machinery... people did everything by hand. You raise a large family and have slaves to survive before modern infrastructures were created... through tons of labor before the industrial revolution.

Wait, you mean to tell me that one particular race doesn't get to monopolize the victim card over slavery?

The arab traders were still slightly active down the coast of East Africa, including Mozambique and Tanzania and into Malawi (then Nyasaland), until the end of the first world war. The pioneers sent by Rhodes to Zimbabwe and Zambia witnessed this , one Major Forbes for example , wrote of what he saw in an expedition, and did their best to intercept the caravans. The Brits finally stopped it after taking Tanzania (Tanganyika) which had been a German colony , in ww1, but where the Germans weren't particularly active in stopping it (turning mostly a blind eye to what was still going on in a limited way in the sticks). Mozambique under the Portuguese were similarly lackadaisical. But,I stress this was in a limited area .

All those Indians, Pakistanis and Africans living here now in the UK must pray to their gods every night at how fortunate they are to have had Britain colonise their great grandparents. They wouldn't have been imported otherwise.

What he has to say would have a much greater impact if he was a better speaker. Many academics minimize the importance of their knowledge because they are such poor communicators. Many university professors are very adept at putting their students to sleep. Um,ah,hmmm,um,ah,ah,ah.....etc etc etc

Should Britain apologise for forcing other countries to abandon slavery???

wait. is he saying white people didn't invent slavery?

This should be taught in every school in the U.K.

*PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT* Using the excuse that "slavery was worldwide" doest change the EVIL of it. Especially in a country that supposedly stood for FREEDOM, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,etc.

Physical slavery has been abolished but mental slavery still exists. Coorporarions, governments, religions , cultures still treat masses as sheep and resist any form of change... Hence we shouldn't be flattered entirely that we live in a free world. Emancipation unadulterated is still elusive

"mainly because of CHRISTIAN views, the idea of owning other human beings as property began to be questioned on principle."

Every civilisation since the dawn of time has practiced slavery... The Irish did!!! (I'm Irish, St.Patrick was a captured slave...) In turn, Irish people in the 17th Century (Baltimore) were enslaved by the Ottomans... Who also raided British costal towns and even settlements in what's now Iceland!!! In pre-Columbian, (Aztec/Maya/Inca) America slavery was commonplace. In pre-European Africa (all over that continent) slavery was a matter of course. The Ancient Greeks had helots/slaves. As did the Romans. The Chinese had slaves, as did the Mughals in India and the Nipponese/Japanese. The Ancient Egyptians held slaves. (Though they didn't build the Pyramids... Trained engineers did that, in the main...) Non-Ottoman Arabia held slaves... (Up till the 1920s and after, indeed...) RUSSIA had SLAVS, it's where we get the name 'slaves'... BUT NOWADAYS IT'S ALL ABOUT THE TRANS ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE??? (It's like, "Hey, I've seen the TV Show 'Roots' and '"12 Years A Slave" so I'M AN EXPERT!!!!!) Maybe not? No European person EVER went to 'raid slaves' in Colonial Black Africa... (Not once...) They didn't have to... (Slaves were traded to Europeans by African Tribes or peoples who already practiced slavery...) EVENTUALLY it was THE BRITISH who said, "Actually, let's re-think this..." (NOT the Belgians, the Dutch, The Portugese, the Germans, the Spanish OR ANYONE ELSE!!!!) Only the British... In fairness, when THE BRITS decided that SLAVERY was an inhuman idea, they OUTLAWED IT!!! But, in doing THAT they compensated THE FUCK out of former slave owners... (Didn't give the 'ex-slaves' a penny!!!) Most had to sign back on for minimum wage... (They still PUT THE IDEA ABOUT that slavery was WRONG!!!) Europe got that in the end. Most Euro Nations followed. Eventually, (after a Civil War, so did North America...) But you know? History was sometimes really shit... But this modern idea of 'REPARATIONS'??? (FROM who TO WHO????) And WHY JUST THE DECENDANTS OF TRAFFICKED BLACK AFRICANS????? (What about EVERYONE ELSE IN HISTORY WHOSE ANCESTORS WERE ENSLAVED???) And WHY JUST the Negro People of Africa who were sent WEST, (ignoring the MILLIONS who were sent to the Muslim Empire in the East??? ALONG WITH CAUCASIAN SLAVES????) Many of those countries practiced slavery well into the 20th Century!!! (Some still do...) To this day... Let's get real... Let's REFERENCE... IF YOU THINK MODERN GERMAN PEOPLE OWE A CONSTANT DEBT BECAUSE OF THE HORRORS OF THE HOLOCAUST TO EVERY JEWISH PERSON ON THE PLANET THEN YOU ARE AN IDIOT!!! THEY DIDN'T DO IT!!! (Likewise to decendents of people OF ANY COLOUR OR ETHNICITY whose ancestors were enslaved...) Countries where ACTUAL SLAVERY STILL exists in 2023: India, Mauretania, South Sudan, Sudan, North Korea, Iran, Indonesia, China, Congo, Afghanistan, Ereteria, Burundi, Central African Republic, Pakistan and ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY other countries... (NONE OF THEM WESTERN/EUROPEAN countries...) If you are REALLY anti-slavery, stop fucking around in history books... (We've all got a story... Get over it...) Reperations my Irish arse... (HOW DARE YOU!!!) LOOK AT WHAT'S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW!!! And do something about that. xx SFR

Heading from Wikipedia: Nigel John Biggar CBE (born 14 March 1955) is a British[3] Anglican priest, theologian, and ethicist. From 2007 to 2022, he was the Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford. NOT a historian.

If I'm not mistaken New York abolished slavery effective 1827. At that time we were a union of independent states.

I come from a mixed heritage background, Scottish, Indian, English, Irish, Native American. Those are the links we know about so far. Since tracing our family tree I've become much more interested in history. It's great hearing all the different points of view surrounding various subjects, this being one of them. I'm completely hooked on the industrial revolution and how it came about and its effects on the world. It's truly astonishing how people /companies/governments can do such great things and/or such terrible things. What I find most shocking is that there are still approx 50 million slaves throughout the world. It seems like an impossible task to stamp it out.

The oldest known statute of Croatian medieval commune is the statute of Korčula from the year 1214. On January 27, 1416 Dubrovnik adopted the abolition of slavery, which was the first case of its kind in Europe.

In 1833 the British Empire took out loans to purchase and free all the slaves within their Empire...British taxpayers finally paid off those loans in 2014. No one else in the world took such measures so why are Anglo Saxon people primarily condemned for slavery? No good deed goes unpunished?

I'm reading his book Colonialism at the moment, its excellent!

You just know that in 2033 there's going to be another massive call for apologies and reparations, when we should celebrate the anniversary of abolishing slavery.

Certain people don’t want to hear this stuff. They can’t conceive of it.

Not a single person that needs to watch this video will watch it.

The fact that there's been slavery through the ages does not make the western slave trade and institutionalised racism any better. People who became slaves have no blame for whatever others had done. The southern states of the USA lived and prospered on the horrible abuse, mistreating and murder of black African slaves. It was horrible. Even more horrible is that they built an ideology around it. And they still wave that racist flag.

"Upper Canada" (Ontario) as it then was, had effectively abolished slavery around 1800. It became the terminus of the Underground Railroad.

New Orleans had a large community of free blacks and many of them owned slaves. If not for Great Britain and the United States slavery would not have ended till many decades later than it did.

thank you for touching topics like this one. Most people really need to stop playing victim, go back to school and learn history.

Facts are kryptonite to the American Press.

Did you know that the word slave derives from the Latin word sclāvus, which means "slave"? This is because during the Middle Ages, numerous empires and cultures frequently seized, sold, and forced into slavery Slavs, a group of ethnic peoples who largely inhabit Eastern Europe. Slavery was (and still is) a universal issue; at the moment, between 30 and 40 million people worldwide are believed to be living in modern slavery, which takes many different forms, including forced labor, human trafficking, debt servitude, and child exploitation.

But my victim points, only blacks was slaves, gimme reparations! - i despise this kind of mentality

The UK government borrowed a huge amount after the abolition to buy the freedom of every slave in the Empire. That debt was only re-payed in 2014.

Well done Brits!

This isn't new information. This is knowledge we received in history class back in 5th or 6th grade in Norway. Detailes changes as we get more information but the basic information has been taught repetietley through 10th grade in history and other societal studies. Were we the only ones who learned this? It seems to be news for the majority when viewing all the podcasts about this subject

1833 Abolition of Slavery Act. It took British tax payers until 2015 to pay off the loan required to free the slaves from their last owners. People alive today helped pay off the loan. The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire.

Never heard "thank-you" for abolishing slavery.

Slaves were considered livestock. So, I can easily see how people who accepted slavery as an institution, would find it unacceptable to abuse slaves. Most cattle ranchers want their cattle to be well treated and would decry anyone who would abuse their cattle.

Slavery was always about subjugation of various groups.The stronger group always won out.Race wasn’t really involved to a great degree until the transatlantic slave trade and that was more dependent on availability and convenience than pure race.

He does manage to inform with a bit of a self-congratulatory tone, though, doesn't he? How benevolent you Brits truly are 😅

Before slavery was invented defeated enemies werde eaten. After the invention of agriculture and farming they stayed alive because their work was a value. After the invention of steam engines slavery became obsolete.

What should be among Britains most proud achievements is being demonised. it literally made the title of Great Britain entirely appropriate and I am proud of my ancestors for taking the moral stand and backing it up with incredible resources and effort. I heard the the general, very poor, population, would seek out goods not made by slaves to encourage the change…cotton from Southern USA for example was boycotted and more expensive cotton bought.

It would be honourable if we could stop the slavery still being carried on in many countries today

“In 1857, in the wake of the Indian mutiny, a British officer, Lt George Cracklow, described in a letter home what happened to captured rebels. “The prisoners were marched up to the guns... and lashed to the muzzles,” he wrote. “The guns exploded... I could hardly see for the smoke for about 2 seconds when down came something with a thud about 5 yards from me. This was the head and neck of one of the men... On each side of the guns, about 10 yards, lay the arms torn out at the shoulders.”” “Biggar’s response to the treatment of Indian rebels exemplifies his approach. One might have thought that a professor of theology would have paused before attempting to find moral exculpation for such savage punishment. Biggar’s approach, however, is wherever possible to find good motives behind every colonial act - he portrays racial segregation, for example, as the product not of racism but of the desire “to protect native peoples from harmful encounters with settlers”. And where it proves impossible to locate a nugget of good, he seeks instead to find exonerating circumstances for the bad. Biggar concedes that the empire “did contain some appalling racial prejudice”, but this was relatively marginal The British empire, for Biggar, “was not essentially racist, exploitative or wantonly violent”. It was born out of many motives, from “cultural curiosity” to “the vocation to lift oppression”, none of which was “morally wrong”. Britain’s “involvement in slavery was nothing out of the ordinary” but its attempts to abolish it were particularly selfless given “the higher price that British consumers would have to pay for freely produced sugar”. Biggar concedes that the empire “did contain some appalling racial prejudice”, but this was relatively marginal. Rather, “the empire’s policies… were driven by the conviction of the basic human equality of members of all races”. These are claims that strain credulity, not least the belief that the British empire was not deeply invested in ideas of racial hierarchy. In 1919, British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour dismissed the idea that the new League of Nations should adopt a statement about equality, insisting it unimaginable “that a man from central Africa could be regarded as the equal of a European or an American”. This was a viewpoint long stitched into the fabric of empire. The Liberal politician Charles Wentworth Dilke’s claim that “nature seems to intend the English for a race of officers, to direct and guide the cheap labour of eastern peoples” was far closer to the reality of British perceptions than Biggar’s wishful account. As one-time prime minister Archibald Primrose, the 5th Earl of Rosebery, asked: “What is empire but the predominance of race?” Similarly, with Biggar’s claim that violence was never an important part of empire. He suggests that the cannonading of Indian rebels, while morally explicable, was nevertheless “repudiated” by the “heart of the Raj”. That, again, is a tendentious view that sits ill with the reality of empire. As even John Kaye observes - in his semi-official A History of the Sepoy War in India, written in the the aftermath of the insurrection - the punishment served as “a wonderful display of moral force” designed to erase any “misgivings” about the “superiority of [the English] race”.” “Consider the discussion of Britain’s abolition of slavery in 1834, for which slave owners received total compensation of £20m (about £16bn today). For liberal imperialists, the 'backwardness' of non-Europeans validated colonialism Biggar describes the compensation as a necessary “political compromise”. That is a legitimate view; but a moral account should surely dig deeper into the ethics of providing recompense for lost “property” when that property consisted of other human beings. Most tellingly, Biggar seems not to recognise as a moral issue the fact that while slave owners received reparations, slaves themselves did not. Ignoring all evidence to the contrary, Biggar imagines that freed slaves continued working on the old plantations not out of economic necessity, having been deprived of all resources, but because of the generosity of former masters in providing housing and food. There is a more profound moral issue about colonialism, too. When Russia invaded Ukraine, most people recognised the denial of sovereignty to Ukrainians as a moral wrong. Few would suggest that we need to tabulate the “good” and the “bad” of Russian rule before passing judgment upon it. Biggar refuses to view British colonialism through the same moral lens because he accepts the claims of colonial administrators that the people over whom they ruled were too “backward” to govern themselves. “It surely cannot always be patronising to believe that foreign people need help, guidance or protection,” he disingenuously suggests. Even in the 19th century such claims were challenged. After the Indian mutiny, John Stuart Mill, the lodestone of Victorian liberalism, defended colonial rule, listing as justification, like Biggar 150 years later, the various improvements it had brought to India. Working-class radicals were unimpressed. An editorial in the Chartist People’s Paper insisted that “the revolt of Hindostan” was no different from struggles for freedom by European peoples. Many Britons had supported Poles in their conflict with Russia. They should equally support the struggle of Indians against Britain. For liberal imperialists, the “backwardness” of non-Europeans validated colonialism. For radicals, liberty and equality were the prerogative of all, not the privilege of the “civilised” few. A century and a half later, we are still having that same debate. Biggar’s real concern is not with the past but with the present. Denigrating colonialism, he claims, is an “important way of corroding faith in the west”. Yet, in seeking to challenge what he regards as cartoonish views of imperial history, Biggar has produced something equally cartoonish, a politicised history that ill-serves his aim of defending “western values”. After all, to rewrite the past to suit the needs of the present, and to defend people’s rights only when politically convenient, is hardly to present those values in a flattering light.”

The western civilization, particularly Britain and USA need to PLEASE start TAKING CREDIT for removing slavery from this world, and NOT keep apologizing for slavery. Until they removed it, it remains prevalent across the world. Of course it took a couple hundred years to remove since it she been around for hundreds of not thousands of years before that. Places outside western civilization, particularly in Africa still have slavery.

Interesting. Looking forward to the full show . ❤

Good points, but it should also be noted that early objections to the slave trade came from the American colonies, primarily due to the concerns of the leading men of Virginia (though the Quakers in Pennsylvania had raised the issue even earlier). Britain forcing the slave trade on the colonies was one of the objections to British rule made in the Declaration of Independence. To their credit, the British took the point to heart. Unfortunately, the Virginians then had to deal with the fact that they had a large number of slaves in their midst who, for various reasons, were not well prepared to be made free. The U.S. outlawed participation of U.S. citizens in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the first decade of the 19th century, but unfortunately it was found impossible to find a jury willing to convict those who did so in Massachusetts and Connecticut where most of the slavers operated from. They continued to flout the law until 1861.