Slavery, The Slave Trade and Reparations
About 12m Africans were shipped across the Atlantic over a period of 400 years (with most occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries). The trade was known as the Triangular Trade because it involved the exchange of European goods for black slaves supplied by African Kingdoms who were then shipped to the New World to produce goods that were shipped back to Europe.
The African West Coast kingdoms, especially those of Ouidah in Benin and the Oyo Empire grew powerful on slave sales.
The slaves were acquired by the African slave salesmen by means of military expeditions into the interior or by purchase. Those interested in the details of the West African Slaver States should read Slavery and Remembrance which summarises what happened.
Most of the slaves went to Portuguese and West Indies Plantations and Spanish colonies:
Portuguese America 38.5%
British West Indies 18.4%
Spanish Empire 17.5%
French Americas 13.6%
United States 9.7%
Dutch West Indies 2.0%
Other
Slave trading was legal globally in most countries until the 19th century. The Transatlantic Slave Trade ended abruptly in the 19th century with the invasion of Nigeria.
In 1807 the British outlawed the Atlantic slave trade and applied this law to all countries. The Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron, established in 1808, grew by 1850 to a force of some 25 vessels, which were tasked with combating slavery along the African coast. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire from 1833. Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans.
In 1807 slavery and onerous serfdom were rife throughout the world. Even after the British were seizing slave ships between 1808 and 1860, over 3.5 million black slaves (30% of the all time total) were transported by non-British ships, largely by the Spanish and Portuguese to South America. Brazil was the major recipient of slaves and in 1826 Britain concluded the British-Brazilian Treaty to abolish the trade. Brazil ignored the Treaty until the Aberdeen Act of 1845 which allowed British vessels to arrest Brazilian traders. Between 1826 and 1850 Britain had concluded treaties with almost every naval power to desist from the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Perhaps the most important action by the British was the invasion of Nigeria. British public opinion was outraged by the slaving activity of West Africa (See Hansard 1844, this is really worth reading). The 1852 Treaty of Lagos was imposed on Lagos but the problem persisted in West Africa.
Article I
The export of slaves to foreign countries is for ever abolished in the territories of the King and Chiefs of Lagos; and the King and the Chiefs of Lagos; and the King and Chiefs of Lagos engage to make and to proclaim a law prohibiting any of their subjects, or any person within their jurisdiction, from selling or assisting in the sale of any slave for transportation to a foreign country; and the King and Chiefs of Lagos promise to inflict a severe punishment on any person who shall break the law. (Treaty of Lagos 1852).
The Treaty was broken and Nigeria was invaded. After the Treaty of Cession (1861) with Lagos most West African kingdoms realised that the slave trade was over. Having turned Lagos into a Protectorate the moral imperative to stop slavery and the competition with other European States for power resulted in the annexation of neighbouring kingdoms. It should be noted that The Kingdom of Benin (now part of Nigeria) was one of the slaving states and the Benin Bronzes were financed in large part by slaving.
Britain did not just end the Transatlantic Slave Trade but also, throughout the 19th century, pressed for the global abolition of slavery and the slave trade (See note 1). The British largely achieved this aim but even today there are cases of slavery around the world although the scale of the problem is a tiny fraction of what was happening in the eighteenth century.
The cost to Britain of maintaining the Atlantic Squadron and other enforcement to stop the Atlantic slave trade has been estimated at 2% of GDP annually for 60 years (about £60 billion in 2018 values). The direct cost of compensating foreign countries so that they would desist in slaving was at least £10 bn in modern values.
Despite this remarkable record of being the leading country to suppress slavery there have been several prominent calls for the British to pay reparations for the slave trade.
Slavery was legal in almost all countries and not considered to be wrong until the British abolished the slave trade and slavery globally.
Suppose, for the moment, that the idea of reparations is accepted. Reparations have many problems. The most obvious is that there were three sets of people involved in enslavement - the enslavers, the shippers/traders and the owners - so who pays and in what proportion?
Another major problem is how to identify ex-slaves - modern people have mixed ancestry so that they might be a quarter from ex-slave stock or an eighth etc., how would this affect compensation? Should descendants of slaves whose own parents or grandparents had been slavers be given compensation? Should ex slaves with Nigerian parentage be both compensated and fined?
A truly major problem is that if slavery from 10 generations ago is a cause for a claim then why not include claims from 20 generations ago or 50 generations? If Black people can be compensated what about serfdom under the Normans? How do we calculate losses? If we use lost pay then pay levels were so low in West Africa that any compensation would be derisory, if we use lost life expectancy and hardship the comparison would be with 18th century European industrial workers who died at 38 and dropped like flies from illness.
The main beneficiaries of slavery were the slave owners who were colonists. As a result the benefit of slaving mostly resided in the countries where it happened. This means that the governments of the Bahamas, Jamaica etc. should pay most compensation if the principle of reparations were ever accepted.
The hope for those seeking reparations is that a virtue signalling UK Government will offer a compensation package to countries associated with enslavement. This would be based on the idea that the current population of the UK benefited from slavery. Of course this is a fallacy because the current wealth of any country is largely due to the efforts of the past 40 years. Countries can fall into penury or, like S. Korea and Japan, rise from the ashes in this time. Current national wealth is not based on pots of gold acquired centuries ago.
Any fair calculation of the benefit of slavery to the UK would separate the non-slavery economy (c.98%) before 1807 from the income from slavery as a first step.
That the current wealth of the UK was due to slavery is also a fallacy because it was the colonists who benefited from slavery, not the whole population of the UK. The benefit largely remains in the Caribbean.
The contribution to the UK economy from slavery usually relies on the much quoted paper by K. Rönnbäck on the benefit of slavery to UK GDP in the 18th and 19th centuries. This paper includes the production of the USA after 1776 in the figures and should not have been published. So what are the real figures? In 1820 less than 10% of UK GDP came from overseas trade and over 70% of this was outside of Empire so there is a ceiling of 3% of GDP for revenue from all imperial trade in 1820. Given these figures, how Caribbean Sugar could have been a significant benefit to the UK in 1820 is a mystery although it was indeed a benefit to the colonists. The Empire was about power before 1830, not money.(See The Role of Slavery in British Economic Growth).
Reparations would be incredibly unfair to the current population of the UK. It is like punishing all Jews for the death of Jesus and is inherently racist. Furthermore about 25% of the population of the UK are from families that have only been in the UK for up to 3 generations, asking them to pay for events from 10-20 generations ago seems unfair although half of the Black British come from West Africa so should probably pay twice the amount of the general population were reparations agreed.
Prior to 1800 almost any person in any country could be associated with slavery. In most countries women were like chattels and even free workers were treated appallingly badly. To revile all people before 1800 because of such associations is absurd and borders on ignorant fanaticism. As British people we should praise the abolitionists and 19th century politicians who used British power to change the world forever rather than practice the politics of hate by reviling most prominent British people from before the 19th century. Blaming the British for slavery is like blaming Florence Nightingale for poor hospital hygiene in the 18th century. It is absurd. The British invented the idea of slavery as a sin. British schools have a heavy responsibility to teach history fairly. Britain has fully redeemed itself for participating in global slavery before the nineteenth century. Those seeking reparations sense that UK governments have weak leadership and are testing their stupidity.
Note 1: The British Empire used its power to conclude treaties globally to prevent slavery (Source: PE Lovejoy. Transformations in Slavery, A History of Slavery in Africa. Cambridge University Press. 2012 )
1807: The Abolition Act prohibits all British subjects from participation in the slave trade as of January 1, 1808. A naval squadron that eventually reaches one-sixth of the total strength of the Royal Navy is dispatched to blockade the West African coast.
1810: Anglo-Portuguese treaty whereby Portugal agrees to restrict its slave trade to its own colonies.
1813: Anglo-Swedish treaty whereby Sweden outlaws the slave trade.
1814: The Treaty of Paris: France and Britain agree that the slave trade is “repugnant to the principles of natural justice.” France agrees to limit its trade to its own colonies and to abolish the trade in five years.
1814: Anglo-Netherlands treaty whereby the latter outlaws the slave trade.
1814: Anglo-Spanish treaty whereby Spain limits its slave trade to its own colonies and prohibits the trade north of the equator after 1817 and south of the equator after 1820 in return for £400,000 in compensation (£4 billion in 2022 values).
1815: Anglo-Portuguese treaty whereby Portugal agrees to limit its slave trade to its possessions south of the equator. In return, Britain waives Portugal’s war debt of £450,000 (£4.5 billion in 2022 values).
1817: British convention with Portugal limits the Portuguese slave trade in East Africa to an area from Cape Delgado to the Bay of Lourenco Marques. Portugal also concedes visit-and-search rights on Portuguese ships suspected of violating this and other agreements.
1817: British treaty with Imerina prohibits the export of slaves from Madagascar in return for compensation of £2,000 per year (£20 m pa in 2022 values). Imerina outlaws slave raiding in the Comoro Islands on penalty of being reduced to slavery.
1817: Anglo-Spanish treaty grants Britain the right to detain Spanish ships.
1820: British treaty with Imerina is extended.
1822: Moresby Treaty between Britain and Muscat prohibits the export of slaves by Europeans in East Africa and establishes a British observer at Zanzibar. Britain recognizes Omani claims in East Africa, including the existence of slavery.
1823: A third treaty with Imerina whereby Britain is authorized to seize slavers; it also provides for the resettlement of liberated slaves.
1824: Establishment of British protectorate over Mombasa with intention to restrict slave trade; protectorate terminates in 1826 under Zanzibar pressure.
1825: Hugh Clapperton and Dixon Denham negotiate treaties with the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno to end slave exports in return for trade in European goods.
1826: Newly independent Brazil accepts Portugal’s treaty obligations with Britain and promises to abolish the slave trade in three years under British-Brazilian Treaty of 1826.
1831: Anglo-French treaty provides for mutual, limited right to search vessels suspected of carrying slaves.
1833: Britain emancipates slaves in its West Indian colonies, South Africa, and Mauritius, with compensation to slave owners; emancipation takes effect on August 1, 1834, although a system of apprenticeship lasts for four years in some colonies.
1835: Anglo-Spanish treaty for condemnation of slave ships.
1838: Thomas F. Buxton launches a campaign against slavery, advocating free trade and the colonization of the African interior with freed, Christian slaves. Buxton’s efforts result in the strengthening of the British naval squadron off the West African coast and the signing of antislave trade treaties with African states.
1839: Convention between Oman (Zanzibar) and Britain, which extends rights of search and seizure.
1841: Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia agree to extend rights of search and seizure to halt the slave trade, although France refuses to ratify the treaty.
1842: Webster-Ashburton Treaty: Britain and the United States agree to maintain a naval force of at least eighty guns off the African coast as part of a joint commitment to suppress the slave trade.
1843: Texas-UK, Uruguay-UK, Bolivia-UK, Mexico-UK, Chile-UK Treaties for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade.
1844: Britain signs treaty with Sultanate of Anjouin (Comoro Islands) to prevent French recruitment of labor.
1845: Anglo-French treaty: Both powers agree to maintain at least twenty-six cruisers off the African coast as an antislave-trade force; rights of search and seizure are abrogated. France does not adhere to the treaty, which is allowed to expire after ten years.
1845: Aberdeen Act: Parliament votes to enforce 1826 Treaty with Brazil by military means.
1845: British treaty with Oman (Zanzibar): Slave trade is restricted to Oman’s possessions in Arabia and East Africa; Britain secures the right of search and seizure.
1846: Tunisia abolishes the slave trade to gain British support against the Ottoman Empire.
1851: Anglo-Persian treaty grants Britain right of search and seizure.
1855: First of several treaties with principalities on the Red Sea coast that grant right of search and seizure to Britain; official appointed to Berbera.
1862: Treaty of Washington: The United States grants Britain the right of search and seizure.
1865: British treaty with Imerina whereby Imerina prohibits the importation of slaves.
1875: British treaty with Tunisia confirming abolition of slavery and the slave trade. Annexation subsequently revoked.
1877: Anglo-Egyptian treaty prohibits the import, export, and transit of slaves in Egypt; domestic slavery to be outlawed by 1884 in Egypt and 1889 in the Nilotic Sudan.
1880: Anglo-Ottoman Convention reaffirms the prohibition of the slave trade and grants Britain rights of search.
1884: British treaty with Ethiopia grants Ethiopia access to the Red Sea through Massawa on a condition that slave trade ends in the interior.
1885: Berlin Conference: Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, Denmark, and the United States agree to “help in suppressing slavery,” although no direct measures are taken against the slave trade in Africa.
1889: Zanzibar grants the British and Germans perpetual right of search, decrees that new slaves entering its domains after November 1, 1889 shall be free, and provides for the emancipation of all slave children born after January 1, 1890.
1889: Brussels Conference: The participants of the Berlin Conference, plus Persia, Zanzibar, and the Congo Free State, condemn slavery and the slave trade. Bureaux are established in Brussels and Zanzibar to collate and disseminate information on the slave trade.
1900: Britain abolishes the legal status of slavery in the occupied parts of Nigeria with the intention of extending the decree throughout Nigeria. (It is often mistakenly thought that the British Empire exercised total control over all of its parts - half of India was self governing, South Africa had a special Dutch constitution, there were protectorates, dependencies, dominions and many other political formats within the Empire).