The UK is marking the 200th anniversary of the end of the slave trade. More accurately, Parliament passed a billed in 1807 to prohibit the use of British ships to transport slaves but the trade in human lives did not end for several more decades. Before the despicable trade was finally ended some 20 million Africans had been transported, enslaved or killed. The relative social position of the Africans and their 'owners' can be described with two disparate facts. In 1781 the captain of the Zong threw his 'cargo' overboard rather than feed slaves dying of malnourishment. In the 1830s former slave owners were paid 20 million pounds in reparations and given an apology by the British government for their lost property. Slavery in the Empire was not outlawed until 1833. Another thirty years passed before the United States ended the immoral practice. Both the United Kingdom and America still live uncomfortably with the legacy of black slavery.
William Wilberforce, a white MP who stood in Parliament for abolition and eventually won passage of the law prohibiting slave trading in the Empire is the subject of a film now in distribution that has received critical acclaim. But the inhuman suffering of thousands--as in Darfur--makes poor box office.
William Wilberforce, a white MP who stood in Parliament for abolition and eventually won passage of the law prohibiting slave trading in the Empire is the subject of a film now in distribution that has received critical acclaim. But the inhuman suffering of thousands--as in Darfur--makes poor box office.